Tales Plainly Told: An Alphabet Fic
by Niamh St. George
Summary: The life and times of Thena Shepard, one letter at a time.
1. A is for Aftermath

A is for Aftermath

There's blood on Thena's hands.

It's dried into the crevices alongside her nails, _under_ her nails. There's dirt, too, but that'll wash. The rest, she isn't so sure. The soap she's been given is meant to smell like lemons, but too synthetic, too wrong to smell like real lemons.

_She knows the smell of lemons, knows the scent of the groves carried along the breeze blowing in through the kitchen window._

A tall woman wearing an Alliance uniform escorts her to a stark white washroom, waiting outside as Thena, armed with the synthetic-smelling soap and a change of clothes, closes herself within. Every muscle in her body is stiff, and every movement aches; it's a cold, deep ache, further down than her bones, sinking into every atom and molecule. The Alliance marine — Lieutenant Something — said a shower "might help."

Thena doubts it, doubts _anything_ will "help." But she nods and locks the door, then strips her clothes from her body, trying not to look too closely at the dark red-brown stains and splotches in the fabric. But each stain is a memory burned into her mind.

_Dad's blood on her hands, soaking into her pants as she kneels, feeling his neck for a pulse that wasn't there. Jason, shot, his warm blood spraying across her torso in the instant before he crumples. The batarian that killed her brother, droplets spattering everywhere as she swings the baseball bat first into his gut, then down across his head. Mom's blood on Troy's hands as he clutches at her body, screaming at her to wake up._

Everything aches and everything's numb — some distant, still-functioning part of Thena's brain tells her she can't be both; she ignores it and turns the water as hot as it can possibly go, until steam fills the small room, fogging the mirror. She doesn't realize until it's clouded over how _thankful_ she is for that. She's not ready to see herself, isn't sure she'll ever be ready for that; she knows she's still the same girl who woke up yesterday morning—_was_ it only yesterday morning? She isn't sure anymore how long has passed since… since _everything_—with parents and brothers and friends and teachers. Thena remembers it, though it feels so incredibly long ago, that she woke up to Dad's pancakes and sausage (and no one in the house could eat breakfast sausage without Dad waxing nostalgic over Earth's pork products and varren just didn't cut it, not really — that morning was no exception).

Days that ended in nights full of fire and death and blood had no business starting out so _mundane._

A hard shudder wracks through her as she stands beneath the streaming water; she's too cold, too _numb_, and for a moment she's certain it's the heat of the shower causing things to crack and fissure inside. She gasps, and it's a broken, wounded sound, too loud for the small room. It bounces off the tile and she clutches harder at herself, sobs coming more violently now as the rational part of her brain reminds her of the soap and washcloth and towel waiting for her. But she can only stand there, steaming water sluicing down her body, turning her skin pink, pooling at her feet in a dingy puddle before swirling down the drain.

They're gone. They're all gone.

It _hurts._

The water is still hot, still driving like needles into her skin by the time she's finished crying, and though Thena's throat is raw and her body still aches, her hands are soon reaching for the soap and the washcloth. Soon she is slowly working away the grit, the dirt, the sweat, and, above all, the blood from her skin. The water pooling and swirling by her feet gets dirtier before it gets any cleaner.

Her brain wants to work, wants to make the connections and figure out what happened; maybe she missed something, maybe she was mistaken, maybe she dreamt it all, maybe she was just _wrong_ — a huge, horrible misunderstanding, and nobody's really dead at all. Maybe she's just crazy and dreaming, this isn't really happening, and all she has to do is _wake up_. She wants to wake up, wants it _so badly, _but she knows she's awake; she knows that though the distance between two points always has been and always will be a straight line, she can't really grasp the reality of that just yet.

They're all gone_._

_Dad's pancakes. Mom's books. Jason's swagger. Troy's hockey stick. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone._

She turns off the water with a jerk and the resultant silence is sharp, _stark_, like the washroom. It takes effort, more than she wants to expend, but she dries off and dresses—the pants and shoes fit, but the shirt is a little long in the sleeves, and she has to roll them up. Despite the shower, despite the clothes, she can still smell smoke: it's on her skin, it's in her hair, it's burned into her nose.

She hates the smell of smoke.

With an angry swipe, Thena wipes the steam away from the mirror, but it fogs up again almost immediately, giving her only a glimpse of herself; her skin is too pale, her eyes too wide. _Traumatized,_ she thinks, filing that image of herself away, thinking of the girl in the reflection as someone else. It's easier that way — that wasn't _her_ in the mirror, because she doesn't look like that. The girl she saw looked… broken. That's not _her._

Closing her eyes, she combs her fingers through her heavy, wet hair, first segmenting and then braiding the length. When she realizes she hasn't got anything to tie the end off with, her eyes fall to the pile of filthy clothing she stripped from herself. It's torn and bloody and unwearable. It's probably going straight into the incinerators anyway. Crouching down, she tears a strip of fabric from her sleeve and winds it around the end of her braid, tying it into a tight knot. Then she gathers it all up, wrapping her clothes in the towel. Studiously, she keeps her mind carefully away from the blood soaked into her clothes. The memories already live too vibrantly in her mind, showing themselves to her every time she closes her eyes. It seems suddenly, _vitally_ important that she control what she lets herself think about.

The door looks far larger and more imposing than it should. Thena hesitates a moment before opening it and stepping out into a hallway every bit as bare as the washroom. Lieutenant Something is still standing there, waiting for her.

"…Sorry if you were waiting long," she mumbles, shifting the damp bundle in her arms.

"Don't worry about it," she replies, smoothly taking the bundle. They walk a few steps before the woman (officer? Is a lieutenant an _officer_? She isn't sure) gives her a sidelong glance. "So…" she begins, and there's hesitation in her tone, but also something else, something Thena can't quite define or pinpoint just then, "are you… did that… um." The lieutenant stops suddenly and Thena follows. "Listen," she says, bringing her voice down to a low pitch. "Nothing I can ask you is going to be easy. I know you aren't all right and I know you don't feel better. I know I don't know — _can't_ know — how you're feeling. But I have to ask you: how are you _doing_?"

It's the last thing Thena expects, this woman speaking to her like she's an _adult._ She looks down at her hands to find there's still blood beneath her nails before she tightens them into fists. "I don't know," she answers honestly. "I…" Everything tightens and trembles inside and there's a moment she can't speak, can't even breathe, because she just wants it all to never have happened in the first place. But it _has_. "It happened," she hears herself saying, and there's the whisper of a question in her words, maybe because she so desperately wants to be wrong about everything she saw and smelled and heard. She wants to be wrong about the blood under her nails, about all of it.

The lieutenant nods slowly, lips pressing firmly into a thin line. "Yeah. It did." She hesitates again before saying, "I'm not going to blow smoke up your—" catching herself suddenly, she continues, "in your ear and tell you everything's gonna work out rosy. But I'll tell you this: what happens next, what you do with this, how it shapes you — and it's gonna shape you — all of that's in your court. You couldn't stop the raid, you couldn't stop what happened — but what happens next is your choice. The person you're going to be, that's still up to you. It's going to be hard, but no matter what, nobody can take that away from you; that's always going to be your choice."

She nods slowly, letting the words sink in — really _listening,_ and that feels new, the listening, because too many people have been speaking _at_ her or _about_ her rather than _to_ her, but the lieutenant—she looks at the woman's armor briefly; her name's Blanchard—is speaking to her, directly to her, in a no-bullshit tone that resonates deep in Thena's skull. She swallows hard and nods. It's something else to focus on for now; thinking about yesterday and the day before and the day before that is hard. Thinking about tomorrow, and the day after… that feels like something she can do for now.

"So," Lieutenant Blanchard says, folding her arms and rocking back on her heels, "how are you doing?"

"Not good," answers Thena honestly. Blanchard nods, unsurprised, and Thena says as much.

"Lost my dad at Shanxi," she says. "Lost my mom in a bottle couple years later."

She doesn't know what to say to that, and the only word that forms is, "Oh."

Blanchard nods. "Yeah. Trust me, it's rough. But…" her words trail off, and she looks like she's warring with what to say next. "But the rough times make you who you are. Whether you're going to be weak or strong — that's not something you decide when you're sleeping in a soft bed."

The words make a sort of sense to her when nothing else does and she nods as they begin walking again. She doesn't want to be weak, doesn't want to crumble and break — _she_ is all she has left. If the only way her family can exist is within her, then it only makes sense for her to be strong. If she breaks, they'll vanish forever. And though she wants her parents right now, her father's arms tight around her, her mother's hand resting on the crown of her head, both of them telling her _it's going to be all right_, she cannot have that — she can only have the memory of it.

Whether they live on in her memory or vanish is up to her. For them to live on, she has to be strong. She understands that now.

"What… what's going to happen next?" she asks. She's not sure she really wants to know the answer, because that implies something _is_ next, and she's not sure she's ready for there to be a "next," but moving forward sort of depends on there being a next step, and Thena fulfilling it. And then another. So even though she doesn't want to know what's next, doesn't want to _do_ what's next, she's asking anyway.

"Well," Blanchard says, "a lot of people are going to ask you a lot of questions. And you're going to have to answer them best you can. We've got temporary quarters set up for you, so when you want to sleep, when you're ready, you can sleep. You want to eat, you can eat." She tilts her head, narrowing her eyes at Thena. "You should probably eat. Try, at least. But… questions first. Lots of questions. There are a few more doctors lined up for you to talk to, too."

"To make sure I'm not crazy," she says quietly.

"Hell, we all know you're not crazy, Thena. But the suits say you've got to talk to doctors, so you should probably go along with them. Sometimes people ask you to do asinine things for what turn out to be pretty good reasons." The sidelong look she gives Thena says a lot more than words could hope to say; it's a look that says, _That means don't fuck with the shrinks, either._

"Okay." She's answering both the spoken words and the unspoken ones.

#

Several days and countless interviews and psych evaluations later, she's seen Blanchard at least once every day. The sight of her reminds Thena of things she might otherwise forget, especially after conversations with psychiatrists that always delve too deep and always leave her insides feeling raw and scraped over. There are sessions when she doesn't want to talk, doesn't want to _tell_, doesn't want to _remember_, and she hates anyone for asking just as much as she hates herself for not wanting to answer in the first place.

Finally she finds herself in a plush office, while an embassy representative argues in hushed tones with an Alliance representative.

Not hushed enough.

Thena pretends not to hear, pretends not to listen, concentrating on her nails. The dried blood is finally gone. But then she hears the words _foster care_ followed shortly by _Bad PR if a Mindoir survivor goes to an orphanage_, and Thena goes suddenly cold and rigid.

_…what happens next, what you do with this, how it shapes you — and it's gonna shape you — all of that's in your court._

She might be an orphan, nothing she can do will change that now, but she does not want _this._ She doesn't want to be shuttled off to somewhere else, a place she doesn't know with circumstances she can't control. She levers herself out of the chair, muttering about needing to use the washroom. The embassy rep waves her off, and soon Thena's walking purposefully down the corridor, heart pounding, hands sweaty. She doesn't know where she's going — only where she's _not._

The ball's in her court, now.


	2. B is for Bastion

If there's anything good that can be said about the ducts, it's that living there keeps Thena's mind on surviving, rather than on Mindoir. The first weeks—_days_— were difficult, so much so that Thena nearly returned to the human embassy several times over. Maybe it was stubbornness that won out; Mom was always telling her she'd inherited her father's disposition, which she'd frequently described as _mulish._ Whatever it is, she doesn't return to the embassy. She keeps to herself, learning as much as she can about the Lower Wards, Zakera in particular, the neighborhoods within each district. The noise, the smells, the _people_, are all overwhelming, and at first, leave Thena with overwhelming claustrophobia more often than not. It takes time, but she learns her way around. She discovers 633 Block, discovers that she's just one nameless face among dozens of others who seek shelter in the HabCapsules.

She learns quickly that she _hates_ HabCapsules.

The first night she takes shelter in one, Thena's nightmares are so violent, so _vivid_, her screams bounce off the smooth interior walls, jerking her awake. When she opens her eyes in that dark, small space, her lungs rebel, refuse to take in air, and when she finally manages to open the capsule, she scrambles out, landing hard on her knees, soaked in sour sweat as dry heaves clutch her frame. But no one notices, and no one cares. Small spaces have never bothered her before, and so she tries the HabCapsules a few more times, to the same effect. After a night or two sleeping in the ducts, she discovers the turian shelter.

The shelter is a simple two-story building, run by a female turian named Tyrrana who eyes Thena strangely, and then shrewdly, as she edges her way in.

"Lost?" she drawls out, and though Thena's certainly had ample time to hear turians speak during her weeks on the Citadel, this is the first time one's spoken to her directly. The vocal patterns—subharmonics?—give an odd resonating depth to the word, as if the woman knows something Thena does not.

She swallows hard — nearly an audible gulp — and looks, _really looks_ into a turian's face for the first time. The woman's eyes are pale amber and there are dark green markings on her silvery facial plates. It's an intricate pattern and it's not until the turian's mandibles snap a little that she realizes she'd been staring.

"No, ma'am," she murmurs, eyes dropping to the floor, cheeks flaming in embarrassment.

The woman folds her arms rocking back a bit and inclining her head. "Sure you're not looking for 633?"

A flicker of a glance upward shows her the turian's still _watching_ her with that intense amber gaze. She looks down again. "Yes, ma'am."

She looks briefly at her talons, flexing them. Thena tries not to notice, tries so hard not to stare. "They've got HubCapsules."

"I know ma'am. I can't—"

"Can't sleep in 'em," she finishes with a derisive snort. "Be surprised how many people _can't._ Damn things."

"You… can't?"

"_Turians_ can't," Tyrrana corrects her. "Bad design," she explains, gesturing at her plated cowl. "We don't sleep on our backs, so the whole concept's pretty much wasted on us. So what's your problem with them?"

"I, uh." Thena swallows hard, unwilling to admit the truth, but seeing no way around it. It also feels, on a level she can't quite describe, like lying to this woman would be an _incredibly bad idea._ "I can't breathe in them," she finally says. She considers mentioning her nightmares, but instinct whispers to her that admitting weakness now would be unwise, so she doesn't.

Tyrrana nods sagely, then jerks a thumb—is it still a thumb on a species with only three digits?—over her shoulder, indicating a long hallway. "Cots and blankets in the back. Females… usually take the beds on the second floor. I'd recommend that. Don't eat the nutrient paste—it's dextro. It won't actually kill you; it'll just make you feel like it will."

"Thank you, m—"

Tyrrana's amber eyes catch the light as she narrows them down at Thena. "One last question."

"…Yes, ma'am?"

"What are you running from?"

It's a hard question to answer when you get right down to it. She's not running from the embassy, exactly; she's running from what they want to give her, want to make her take. And it's something she simply _does not want._ "My family were killed," she says evenly — the words have gotten easier to say, and she hates that they have.

One of Tyrrana's facial plates move, like an eyebrow arching. "Humans don't find homes for their orphaned young?" she asks, with more than a hint of disdain and disapproval.

"They do. But… I had a home, ma'am," she replies quietly. "I don't want a different one."

A long silence stretches out between them like a held breath while Tyrrana appears to be weighing the truth of Thena's words. Finally, she rolls her shoulders in a shrug. "Fair enough," she finally says. When you get upstairs, ask for Jevia. We've get donations sometimes — all different species — get her to show you the box and see if there's anything you can use."

"Thank you, m—"

"No. If you're gonna stay here, you're gonna call me Tyrrana," she tells Thena firmly. There's no room for even a whisper of an argument. "Now, kid, what's your name?" When Thena answers, she nods once, part acknowledgment, part approval that Thena can follow directions, apparently. "Tell me something, Thena. Shadow Broker find you yet?"

"No, ma— uh," she stammers slightly before recovering. "No, Tyrrana. No, he hasn't."

"Good," she intoned. "See that he doesn't. You'll mess your life up good that way."

"I won't, Tyranna."

Thena doesn't make a nuisance of herself in Tyrrana's shelter; she comes in, she sleeps, she cleans up after herself, and she leaves. Sometimes she folds laundry, threadbare blankets and equally as worn cot-covers, but it allows her to feel as if she's doing something worthwhile to deserve Tyrrana's indulgence. And she's _sure_ it's indulgence, allowing a human into her domain. Over time Thena finds a few useful things in the donation bins: an old rucksack, and very occasionally human clothes. She hasn't had _things_ since Mindoir, and having belongings enough to carry around in a bag… _bothers_ her for reasons she doesn't entirely understand. But practicality outweighs all else in this particular instance, and she keeps the bag and what clothes she can collect.

Many other lessons are rooted in common sense; she's less apt to garner unwanted attention if she's not too unkempt, and so she makes an effort to keep her hair neatly braided and her hands and face washed. Perhaps even more importantly, she learns which restaurants and cafes dispose of the night's scraps, half-eaten dinners and overcooked meats sent back to the kitchen by fussy patrons. She puts some of what won't perish into her bag to be kept for later. She avoids C-Sec for many reasons, not the least of which is the knowledge that they'd send her back to the human embassies to be processed into a foster home. There are nights when she can't sleep, when all she can remember is the sound of her mother's voice, or the particular way the kitchen smelled when all the windows in their house were open — those nights she thinks about slinking back to the embassy, tail tucked between her legs. She can't. She won't. She _doesn't_.

It takes a few weeks, nearly a month, but Thena soon finds a rhythm in her days and nights.

But for as long as it takes her to establish a rhythm, it takes only moments for it to go to hell. And it's Tyrrana who sends her there.

She wakes, curled upon a cot, huddled under a thin blanket. Only a few seconds pass before the muzziness of slumber clears enough for her to register the small hand latched upon her wrist. A few seconds more tick by before she determines there is a second, much _smaller_ body on the cot with her. The child—a girl—is young; she might be as young as six, or as old as nine — Thena's never been good at guessing ages, and the child feels woefully thin as she clings to Thena. It takes several long moments to extricate herself from the girl's grip and then climb out of the cot, but once she's on her feet, she's flying downstairs to find Tyrrana.

"What the hell?" she blurts — and it's all her still-sleep-addled brain can manage. Luckily Tyrrana isn't the type to play coy. Or at least she's not playing coy _now._

"A stray came in tonight," she says. "Figured you could show her the ropes."

"Are you kidding me? She's a _baby._ What's she even doing—"

Tyrrana cuts her off with a gesture, interjecting, "Shadow Broker took out her dad. I hear he wracked up a hell of a gambling debt. The kid says she hasn't got a mother."

"How do you even know… _any_ of this?" Thena breathes, agape.

"That's what I do. I keep my ear to the ground. You've got to, in Zakera; you hear stories, and if you listen closely enough, you can put the stories together."

"Okay, so what am I supposed to _do_ with her?"

Tyrrana shrugs again, and Thena's starting to hate the gesture. "Like I said, show her the ropes. See if you can keep her from getting chewed up and spat out. The Broker doesn't like loose ends — he may come looking for the kid. Hell, he may try to use her on jobs. Wouldn't be the first time he's pulled that kind of crap."

No. No, this absolutely is _not_ what she signed up for. She barely knows how to take care of _herself_ in the ducts and the wards; she can't be expected to take care of someone else, too. "I don't know the first thing about kids!" she protests.

"No one's asking you to change diapers, Thena. Keep an eye on her, make sure she doesn't fall down an air shaft or get plucked up by the Shadow Broker. It's not high science, it's common sense." She extends a finger with a long, curved talon at Thena, shaking it. "Why do you think you don't see a lot of kids around _this_ place?" She'd never thought of it, and admits as much; Tyrrana rolls her eyes. "Life expectancy for a duct rat, Thena. What do you think it is? I'll tell you—_not long._ I don't know what you humans do, but turians take care of their own. Thought you'd be the type to do the same." She shrugs again. "Maybe I was mistaken."

"No, I— that's not it," she replies hotly. "She's a _kid._ I don't know how to take care of a _kid._"

"You teach them how not to make stupid mistakes that get them killed. Let her learn from you, Thena. The kid's scared witless. Who knows? Maybe you'll make a dent."

Shifting her weight and jutting out one hip, Tyrrana folds her arms and looks down at Thena, a challenge in her eyes. She looks as though she's… waiting for Thena to say no. Frowning, Thena looks over her shoulder, up the stairwell to the second floor. Maybe it didn't happen at the hands of batarians that torched everything in their path, but whoever she was, the little girl had lost her family, had run away — and while Thena had run to avoid a new life thrust upon her, this girl ran out of fear, ran away from what sounded like legitimate _danger._

She feels a foreign twist of guilt deep down in her gut. _You could have a home if you wanted it. She can't._

"…What's her name?"

"Lila."

Taking responsibility for another life is nothing short of terrifying, even if "responsibility" amounts to little more than making sure Lila doesn't wander down the wrong duct and get sucked into the vents. Her heart's beating a little harder and she crosses her arms over her chest as if to masquerade the fact. The fingers of her left hand find a dry patch of skin at her right elbow and begin picking at it.

"Tyrrana?"

"Yeah?"

Swallowing hard, she looks up at the woman's face. Behind the plates, her eyes are narrowed, and the mandibles are pressed firmly to either side of her face. She looks as if she's waiting for something.

"…What can you tell me about the Shadow Broker?"

A strange expression flutters across Tyrrana's face before she looks over her shoulder and shouts for Jevia to make a pot of dual chiral tea. "Pull up a chair, kid," she tells Thena, her expression grim. "This could take a while."


	3. C is for Covert

Too many pieces to the same puzzle, and none of them interlocking — not Narius Vakarian's idea of a good day. It was, on the contrary, his very definition of a _bad_ day, a _frustrating_ day, and an exceedingly _long_ day. Common sense told him it was time to call it a night; dogged determination told him he just needed a little distance before things started making sense. Either way required him to step away from his terminal, from his desk covered end to end in precisely organized chaos: crime scene holos, evidence reports, deposition transcripts, recon vids. His damned eyes were killing him and he blinked hard; the glare off the holos and the vids had given him the early thrummings of a headache.

Definitely time to clock out.

He swept the sensitive material away before he began closing things up for the night. It was far too late to place a call to Palaven, so he fired off a message to Kalthea instead, before checking his other messages. Nothing from — or worse, _about_ — Solana or Garrus, thank the spirits; it was his son who left him worried— the last communication he'd received from his son had left the distinct impression Garrus was… chafing. Training aboard a dreadnought wasn't meant to be easy; it was meant to build strength of _character_, and while Narius had the confidence his son would eventually find his way, every stumble troubled him. Had he been so frustrated, so _contrary_ at sixteen? It didn't seem possible.

Zakera Ward was quiet tonight, and he wanted time to think, and so as Narius left C-Sec headquarters for the night, he turned his steps toward the marketplace instead of rapid transit in hopes a walk might help clear his mind some. The closer he got to the Lower Wards marketplace, the thicker the crowds became; still, he found most gave him a wide berth, either because of the uniform or his firearm — it was hard to say which.

So crowded was the market that Narius very nearly missed the thief.

The human girl was small and young — or _looked_ it; the species seemed to mature slowly despite having a lifespan similar to his own. She was thin, nearly gangly, with black hair that hung down her back in a single plait. And she was very deftly sliding nutrient ration bars from a kiosk into her bag — the kiosk owned by twice-damned Jin Lomak, a volus he'd had words with before about selling "reappropriated" military supplies. No doubt the bars had been relieved from another supplier, or worse, supply craft wreckage, and Lomak was likely selling them at three times their going rate. He quickened his pace, not sure which thief he was going to deal with first. The girl worked quickly, palming five bars—and that was just by his count—before turning briskly on the ball of her foot and vanishing into the crowd. But as she turned, her dark braid swinging behind her, he saw her face. It was a face that had crossed his desk a number of times in the last six months; the girl, Thena Shepard, was one of only a handful of survivors of the batarian raid on Mindoir. Evidently she'd slipped out of the embassy while her case-worker was distracted, and no one had been able to find her since.

Until now.

Maybe. _Maybe_ if he'd been on duty, he'd have done more than give Lomak a long cold glare as he strode past his kiosk of ill-gotten supplies. Maybe he'd have yelled for the girl to stop, rather than following from a distance as she made her way with light, purposeful steps down stairwells and through alleyways, clutching her bag as if it contained her weight in credits instead of five nutrient bars of roughly the same consistency as his office chair. A duct rat now — of that he was sure, but the longer he followed, the more duct access points she ignored. She stuck to the narrow alleyways, hurrying through them like she'd been born there, everything about her posture, her movements screaming urgency.

The longer he followed, the more familiar her path became, and the more baffled Narius found himself.

The Shepard girl darted down an alleyway he knew too well, and when she turned left instead of right, Narius swore silently and ducked through after her, reaching the mouth of the alley in time to spy her rushing into Tyrrana's place. Tyrrana. Hard on the heels of his initial reaction—a combination of disbelief and surprise and a little _what the hell?_—came resignation. Of _course_ the missing Mindoir survivor was staying at Tyrrana's place, because that just _figured_. Damn it.

The woman herself sat just inside the open doors, perched on a repurposed barstool salvaged from spirits only knew where. She was reading a datapad that Narius knew had equal chances of holding either asari erotica or declassified mission reports.

"Made it," Shepard exclaimed somewhat breathlessly, still clutching her bag. "Lila okay?"

"She's been asking for you," Tyrrana answered, jerking her chin in the direction of the stairwell. "Dree's sitting with her. Get what you need?"

"Some of it," she replied with a shrug. "Didn't want to waste too much time."

"Do I wanna know where you found it?" she asked as Shepard walked past, already making her way to the stairs.

The girl's answer floated down behind her: "No, I don't think y'do."

Several seconds ticked by, which Narius spent trying to make heads or tails of what he'd just witnessed. Tyrrana was allowing humans—_welcoming_ them?—in her shelter now? Granted, he'd never known her to turn anyone away without excellent reason, but this was… bizarre. Other dextro species made sense, but there wasn't any legitimate reason a human couldn't find a place to stay up in 633 Block. But then, Tyrrana's voice cut razor-sharp through the dimness, her vocal patterns doing not a damned thing to hide her amusement. "Oh, for crying out loud, Narius, I can hear the gears churning from here. Come out of the damn shadows already. You're about as stealthy as a drunk krogan."

"Coming from you, that's a compliment. In your book who _isn't_ as stealthy as a drunk krogan?" he riposted, coming around the corner, taking no pains whatsoever to mask his disapproval.

She hummed, thoughtfully. "You're only saying that because it's true." Tyrrana then darkened the datapad screen—asari erotica, then— and set it aside. "So, Narius, what can I do for you? Need a code cracked? A lock hacked? Or is it intel you're after? I've been hearing nasty rumors about the case you're working on—"

"The girl that just walked in. The human."

She grinned, entirely unsurprised. "What about her?" Before he could so much as formulate a reply, Tyrrana's hand whipped up suddenly as she intoned, "No, wait. Don't tell me. Let me guess."

Narius folded his arms and rocked back on his heels. "Oh, this is going to be good."

"Okay, wait." Bringing one hand to her browplates, Tyrrana assumed an attitude of intense concentration. "She… stole _food._"

"Accurate," Narius replied in a dry drawl.

"Wait, _wait._ There's more. She stole it from the son-of-a-bastard volus who always goddamn overcharges _everyone_ for crap he lifted off crash sites. Am I getting warmer?"

"Positively balmy." He sighed, hard. "Don't tell me— spirits, just _don't_ tell me you told that girl where to go and who to steal nutrient bars from. Don't tell me that."

The hand dropped. "Fair enough. I won't tell you."

"Damn it, Tyrrana," he muttered, leaning against the wall opposite her, crossing his arms. "What the hell are you trying to pull down here? Humans? _Really?_"

She shook her head, facial plates drawing forward. "You know I won't turn anyone away unless I think they're up to some seriously no-good shit." She jerked a thumb behind her. "That kid's _not_ no-good." Off Narius' expression — skeptical, he knew — she rolled her eyes. "So she was stealing food. Kid's been trying to find a damn job; nine times out of ten they're telling her she's too young. She's sixteen; Alliance military won't even let her in for another two years." She paused long enough for her mandibles to give an annoyed flutter. "Well. Eighteen months."

Just about Garrus' age, then. Narius frowned. "And the one time out of ten?"

Lifting her shoulders in a shrug, Tyrrana sighed, "Errands."

His frown deepened into a grimace as he pressed the heel of his palm against his right browplate; a headache was pounding away like a military anthem, worse and worse. Sadly, this wasn't unusual when matters involved Tyrrana. "Crap, not for—"

"No, no," she replied, waving a hand. "I already warned her off of him. Other folks. Less you know about _that_, probably the better."

Headache, _definitely_ getting worse. Every damn time he had to come down to this part of the wards, it seemed. This address, right here. Tyrrana's intel was good, always had been, and she always brought a unique perspective to the table; between her ability to sniff things out, coupled with that unique perspective and an ability to find solutions where most others saw solid walls, it was no surprise she'd been a rising star in Blackwatch, relentlessly ascending tier after tier before dropping out entirely, no warning, no explanation—and no one still understood why—and resurfacing, of all places, _here._

All the same, her 'I'm cleverer than you' attitude—part and parcel for anyone who'd ever worked spec ops—was a drain on his patience, and always had been. "I think we might need to have a talk about your ability to instill confidence."

Then Tyrrana shifted on her stool and crossed her legs, mandibles flaring into a smirk. "Funny you should mention that."

"Is this the part where you finally tell me why the human girl who's been missing the last six months, the girl the Alliance has been _looking for_ for the past six months is living in your shelter? Spirits, Tyrrana, give me one damn reason — one damn _good_ reason — not to call down the Alliance reps right now."

"The way I understand it, she goes back to the humans, they put her in a home."

"The batarians mowed down Mindoir. There weren't more than a handful of survivors to speak of in the whole colony. The humans claim they take care of their own; she _should_ go to a—"

"She doesn't _want_ to, Narius."

"She's a child," he argued. "t doesn't matter what she _wants_. What matters is what's best for—"

"Oh, come off it," interjected Tyrrana vehemently. "If she were turian, that kid'd be neck deep in basic training right now. She'd have a damned purpose. I'm trying to give her that."

"Purpose," Narius echoed, agape. "_Purpose?_ Stealing food? Running _errands_ for—"

"Now, I didn't _tell_ you what kind of people she runs errands for," she broke in, wagging a finger at him. "They could be very nice people. Clerics. Priestesses. _Monks._"

"_Assassins?_"

"…Freelancers," she suggested lightly, then leaned back as far as she dared and let out a deep, long sigh so at odds with the light tone. When she spoke again, her voice had lowered and was more serious. "The point, Narius, is that this kid has handled every last shred of responsibility I've thrown her way. She's a bright girl, and a hard worker."

"What could any _human_ begin to understand about turian responsibility?"

"More than you'd think." She tilted her head at him, narrowing her eyes and _scrutinizing_ him. "So tell me, Narius," she began, too casually for him to really trust or believe. "How many duct rats have your men scraped out of the vents in the past six months? How many have you arrested for vagrancy? Theft—"

"I might still get one on theft," Narius interrupted with a glower.

Tyrrana continued, heedless of the interruption. "How many have you found dead with red sand on their hands because of a delivery gone wrong? Go on. You think about the answer to that. I'll wait."

Stubbornly, he realized suddenly he didn't _want_ Tyrrana to be right, but then, just as suddenly, recognized how foolish, how detrimentally _proud_ he was acting about it. Instead, Narius considered what she was saying: how many arrest reports he'd seen in the last six months, how many small, mangled bodies — if there were _bodies_ at all — removed from the vents. The change in the numbers had been so gradual he hadn't noticed it, but now that she brought it to his attention, he could see there was a pattern, just too small and slight for him to have recognized it was there at all.

"All right," Narius drawled, but oh, _so_ reluctantly. "Tell me. What did you do?"

"I sent the strays to Thena at first. After a while, I stopped having to send them; they found her all by themselves." She glanced over her shoulder at the stairwell, an almost… fond expression flittering across her plates as she said, "Thena… watches over them. Keeps them a coherent unit. No stragglers. Stops them from falling in with the stupid crap that goes on down here." She shook her head then let out a dry laugh. "I heard her telling the kids the Shadow Broker eats children. Scared the _shit_ out of them." With a vague gesture over her shoulder, she added, "One of them's got a hell of a fever. So, yeah, she stole military ration bars — higher nutrient content. Managed to charm the cranky asari two doors down to part with some medicinal tea. I've got no idea if the kid's going to live or die, but if she dies, it won't be because no one gave a damn."

Narius kept his expression neutral throughout this, pushed even the faintest twinge of fledgling respect aside, locking it away. Tyrrana would have been even more insufferable otherwise. "How many kids is she running herd over?"

"About five right now."

He nodded slowly. A sixteen year old in charge of five individual lives. It had the potential to end… disastrously. _Sixteen._ And _human._ "So what happens when _she_ starts to slip?" he countered. "When the ends start to justify more questionable means? Sure, a couple of nutrient bars when there's a sick kid — maybe that's defensible enough." He held up a finger, adding, "_Maybe._ But what happens when _she_ starts trying to cut corners, starts really believing she can do whatever the hell it takes _to_ justify the means?"

Tyrrana tipped her head at Narius, mandibles stretching into a smile. "I figure that's when you put the fear of Vakarian into her," she answered, her subharmonics belying her fond amusement.

"The fear of Vakarian," he echoed flatly, staring at Tyrrana as her grin widened.

"It's just that you're so good at it, little brother. It'll be like a game of good cop/bad cop."

"I'm usually the _good_ cop," he told her with a glare.

"Narius, Narius, _Narius_," Tyrrana Vakarian chuckled — and she was still a Vakarian, despite Blackwatch changing her markings, despite _everything_ — "the fact that you _are_ a good cop _makes_ you the better bad-cop. Do what you're good at, and she'll be fine."


	4. D is for Detained

"_Again_, Shepard?"

Thena slouched down in the chair—no easy feat, given she was sitting in a cold, metal, straight-backed monstrosity— almost exactly the same time as Captain Vakarian leaned forward, pressing his forearms against his desk. Looming. He was still sitting, but he was _totally_ looming over her, glaring across the desk at her. Thena slunk a little lower in the chair, arms crossed tightly over her chest as she scowled down at one corner of his desktop. Probably C-Sec used chairs like these just to wrangle confessions out of the most hardened criminals. This was the third time her butt had found its way to this particular chair, and if she thought it'd do a damned bit of good, she'd confess to anything just to get the hell out of it again. Problem was, confessing didn't help when you got caught red-handed. Instead, she slid down a little further, rounding her aching shoulders.

"I guess," she muttered, scowling downward.

"Sit up straight, thank you, and if you aren't going to do anything else, at least do me the courtesy of looking me in the eye when you answer me."

Gritting her teeth, Thena yanked her gaze up to his and slowly pushed herself up. He was glaring at her — she knew that much, could read that crystal clear. The blue facial markings just made Vakarian's blue eyes that much colder, that much more disapproving, and it wasn't _easy_ getting into—and keeping herself in—a staring match with a pissed-off turian, but she wasn't going to back down, didn't want to _let_ herself back down. "I guess," she said again, enunciating more clearly this time, despite her aching jaw. Her aching _face._

"You _guess,_" he growled, slamming his palm against the top of his desk_._ "This is the third time, Shepard. The _third time_ your ass has been in that chair in as many months. Give me one damn good reason not to jettison your ass off this station."

She gritted her teeth harder despite the dull ache pounding through her head and began grinding them, which, in all honestly, hurt more than gritting them had done. Thena had reasons — lots of them — but she doubted they made a damn bit of difference to anyone in C-Sec, _especially_ Hard-Ass Vakarian. Why the hell would he care if fucking Eclipse had recruited Elleigh? Elleigh, who'd _just_ turned sixteen and thought it was all mechs and cool armor and respect_._ _Respect_, she'd told Thena. Told her she was tired of sleeping in shelters, tired of stealing food, tired of all the bullshit and the always moving, never staying, always hiding.

Elleigh, who hadn't _managed to survive the goddamn initiation._

So yeah, when Thena'd heard about it, _hell_ _yes,_ she'd hauled ass out of Tyrrana's place and made a beeline to Chora's Den. It was either Chora's Den or Flux, because that's just where the mercs hung out, so she'd known there was a fifty-fifty chance of either finding who was responsible, or someone close enough to be responsible. She'd been trying to figure out how the hell she was going to get past the bouncers, never _mind_ what the hell she was going to do after that, when she spied two mercs in Eclipse armor — an asari and a human woman — standing by the entrance, laughing together. _Laughing._

Rage had swamped her, blinded her, blotted out everything resembling common sense and self-preservation she'd ever known in a rush of blood pounding in her ears, making her temples throb. Thena hadn't even really _thought_ about what she was going to do, not really, but all that heat and anger had sparked into a blazing fire somewhere in the back of her skull, flooding her limbs with adrenaline and suddenly she was _running_, legs pumping, feet pounding hard against the floor through the too-thin soles of her shoes. And nothing made it more evident she hadn't thought any of it through than when she flung herself at the human. If Thena hadn't had the element of surprise on her side, she was sure the two mercs would've turned her into paste, quickly, painfully, and efficiently. Truth be told, was still marginally surprised they hadn't. She'd leapt upon the human woman, grabbing a hank of hair and _pulling_ as weight and momentum sent them both slamming hard into a wall. The woman had shrugged her off with an ease that _still_ grated, still annoyed Thena, but she'd scrambled back to her feet, furious, hitting and punching and scratching and biting, right up until the point a wave of blue light had sent her sailing away from them and landing hard on her back, her head slamming hard upon the floor with a crack that had resounded through her ears bounced its way through her skull.

And _still _she'd pushed to her feet again, blood in her mouth and pain splitting through her head, and was running toward them for another go, when a blue armored arm had caught Thena around the waist and hefted her up. Someone had called C-Sec — someone _not_ standing around the Chora's Den entrance taking in the show, which, from what she saw, a lot of people were doing. But someone had.

And now here Thena was. Again. Third time in three months, with a lot more bruises than the last two times, and if she had a concussion she wouldn't have been at all surprised. She wasn't looking forward to telling Tyrrana about this — if she got the chance to. Vakarian looked _murderous_. Probably pissed off the officers had intervened at all.

"You don't know what they did," she ground out through her teeth.

"According to the report corroborated by at least a dozen witnesses," he snapped, "they were standing outside Chora's Den when you launched an unprovoked attack." He leaned further over the desk. "An _unprovoked attack on two Eclipse mercenaries._ Are you demented? Do you have any idea how lucky you are to be _alive_ right now?"

"Then maybe they should've been _inside_ the bar," Thena muttered, sulkily. "I probably wouldn't've been able to sneak past the bouncer. Their own stupid fault."

The C-Sec captain rubbed hard at his browplates and shook his head. "Do you know how many charges you're being brought up on, Shepard?"

"I don't _care._"

The sound of his palm slapping the table made her jump, the force of it was enough to make his terminal shudder gently. "You _should care_, young woman. Have you given even the first thought to your future should you find yourself escorted off this station? Because I guarantee you, it won't be anywhere pleasant."

"_They killed my friend!_" Thena shouted suddenly, and maybe later, if there was a later, she could blame it on the concussion, yelling at Captain Vakarian like that. But she didn't _care_. "They recruited her and _killed_ her." Maybe—just maybe—Thena really _did_ want off the station. If it meant being away from people who depended on her, if it meant being sent somewhere she could just _be_, without anyone else around, then maybe it wouldn't have been such a bad thing.

Captain Vakarian let out a deep, heavy sigh. "Shepard, I realize mercenary work is… questionable at best and not the first choice for—"

"No," she said, leaning forward in the chair. "You aren't _listening _to me. They recruited her and when she wouldn't fulfill the initiation, they killed her."

Vakarian went still, blinking slowly at her. "You have proof of this?"

"Just what Elleigh told me. She thought… it'd be fine, like getting a real _job,_ and then— they wanted her to kill someone. As initiation." Reaching up, she raked her hands through her hair, remembering how terrified Elleigh had been when she'd come back to the shelter in the middle of the night. She'd woken Thena up and the two had sat huddled together in one of the back rooms while Elleigh explained through her tears how she couldn't do what they'd asked. Neither of them had had any idea what that rejection would mean, later. "She wouldn't. She thought she could just… just come back, but…"

The stormcloud hadn't budged an inch from Vakarian's face. If anything, he looked more disappointed and irate. "Be that as it may, it does not give you license to behave in the manner you did."

"So what _should_ I have done?" Her voice broke on the word, but she fought back, beat down, and wrestled away the urge to cry. She _was not_ going to break down _now._ Not here, and not in front of _this_ guy. Thena cleared her throat and clenched her hands into fists until the blunt ends of her fingernails pressed uncomfortably into her skin, pain taking the edge off the urge to crumple down into sobbing tears over the fucking _unfairness_ of it all. "What, am I actually supposed to believe C-Sec gives half a damn about some duct rat who got in with the wrong gang?"

Muttering something under his breath she couldn't quite understand, Vakarian rubbed both hands across his face before dropping them against his desk. "Citadel Security is dedicated to _keeping the Citadel safe._ If you had made a report—"

"They still would have killed her. You were going to keep _one kid_ safe from a whole merc gang? Do you actually expect me to believe that?"

"And how do you expect you'll keep _yourself_ safe?" he countered, the angry rumble in his voice giving it a strange sort of depth that made her skin crawl and her stomach turn to lead. "Or do you think no one in Eclipse will seek revenge against someone who attacked two of their members?"

"_Attacked?_ Look at me! Does it really look like Eclipse has any reason to be worried about _me_?"

"Do you really think they _care_?" he challenged, standing up and planting his hands on the desktop, doing an even better job of looming over her. "Do you honestly believe they'll just overlook you because you're somehow beneath their notice? You've only exacerbated the problem, and did nothing whatsoever to honor your friend's memory. You've made things worse, young woman, without making them better."

"So what was I supposed to do?"

"The right thing. Do not tell me it's been so long since you've done the right thing that your conscience is so out of practice. If you want to honor someone's memory, _behave with honor._"

"I don't want _honor._" What _was_ honor, anyway? She understood the concept, understood knights and kings and quests, understood Odysseus or Perseus, understood the stories and myths and legends her mother had told her for as far back as Thena's memory could stretch. But any sort of _practical_ application? Then it was a notion as foreign, as far away as knights and damsels and the Earth they'd come from. There wasn't room for things like _honor_ in the real world. "I want to make them _pay. They're_ the mercs. They're the ones who cause trouble everywhere. They're the ones who—"

"'They started it'? Do you truly believe you're the first one to make that argument?" He didn't give her a chance to answer, his voice rising slowly, _angrily_. "Do you really believe that's the way to right a wrong? There are _steps_ to take, _channels_ to go through. There is a right way and a wrong way of doing everything, young woman, and if you aren't going to do something right, you're better off not doing it at all."

"Why—"

"Because," he said, leaning even further over the desk, glaring down at her, succeeding in making her feel small enough that she had to fight against the urge to slink down in the chair, "when you've done something _right,_ then you _haven't_ made an unholy _mess_ of everything." _Like you have now._ Though the words remained unsaid, Thena heard them loud and clear. "If you do nothing else, do this: avoid making a bad situation worse, at all cost._ Think before you act._ Your behavior did not bring back your friend, may have endangered _you,_ and did precisely _nothing_ to reprimand anyone in the Eclipse." Pushing back against the desk, he stood upright and crossed his arms, scowling down at her. "So. What do you plan to do now?"

Thena's arms tightened around herself, as if the action could provide protection against the Captain's words, against her own rising uncertainty. "Doesn't sound like I have to worry about it if you kick me off the station."

"I'm starting to suspect a better punishment would be to do precisely the opposite."

#

In the end, she'd gone from Vakarian's office to a holding cell, where she'd sat for upwards of nine hours. Nine hours, waiting for something to happen, something horrible, to be sure. Nine hours, _thinking._ There wasn't much else to do _but_ think, slumped on the plain metal bench, taking up as little space as possible, trying not to be seen. Nine hours wondering if she'd be sent off the station, or if Vakarian was finally going to put the pieces together and figure out _she_ was the missing Mindoir survivor the Alliance had their collective panties in a twist over finding. Nine hours wondering if she was going to get to say goodbye, or if they were going to let her stay on the station, and if she _was_ going to stay, how the hell she was going to remain off Eclipse's radar, if she was even _on_ their radar to begin with.

Nine hours wishing she was somewhere else.

Finally, the plain metal door slid open, revealing an asari C-Sec officer. "C'mon, kid," she said, nodding in the direction of the corridor she'd come down. "You're out."

Moving slowly, cautiously, Thena unfolded herself from the bench. "Out… of the Citadel?" she asked, crossing the room with slow, shuffling steps.

The agent gave her a look. "Uh, no. Out of the _cell_. Come on, someone's here to collect you."

The sense that something was about to go wrong didn't subside as Thena followed the officer down what seemed like miles of bland hallways and nondescript doors leading to other bland hallways. Finally the corridor they were following dumped out into a large, plain room with sturdy, uncomfortable-looking furniture. One figure stood in the center of the room, arms folded across her slim frame, bright green eyes doing nothing to hide their disapproval.

"…Hey, Jevia," Thena mumbled, eyes dropping, barely remembering not to scuff her foot across the floor when she did.

"Don't _Hey, Jevia_ me, kid," she said, mandibles snapping. "Your ass is gonna be in a sling when Tyrrana's done with you."

Suddenly, _everything_ Thena stood to lose floated out in front of her. Captain Vakarian's ire was nothing compared to the knowledge she was going to have to face Tyrrana next. If she was going to be cast out from Tyrrana's place, maybe getting kicked off the Citadel entirely wasn't such a bad thing after all.

"What the hell were you thinking haring off like that? You scared the _shit_ out of us."

"She's… mad?"

"Worse. _Disappointed._"


	5. E is for Education

_April is the cruellest month._

One of her mother's favorite quotes. Thena knows some of the rest, something about mingling memory and desire, but no matter how hard she tries, she can't remember _all_ of it. She _wants_ to try, wants to remember, because it's something else for her to focus on right now, something else other than it being April, other than it being her birthday, other than knowing in two weeks it will have been a year, other than losing Lila to fever and Elleigh to Eclipse, Dree going missing, Prynn leaving for Omega with illusions of becoming a Blue Sun, and now, most recently, Carlos getting worked over by another of the 'rats just for wandering into their "territory." There are new faces every couple of weeks, and every couple of weeks someone goes missing. But right now… right now, everything feels as if it's going wrong at once, sliding and slipping off-track and maybe it is, or maybe she's just too damned distracted by _April._

She's always known it'd come around, and for all that she didn't want or try to count the days, somewhere in the back of her head she was always aware of how much time had passed since that night. She doesn't think of it as _the night her family died,_ or _the night of the raid_, or _the night everything changed_. When she thinks of it at all, she thinks of it as: That Night. The night she and Troy and Jason had been sitting on the cold ground in a dark cornfield, making Jay promise to write, making him swear he wouldn't forget them during basic training. The night the black of the sky was lit with orange flames, thick smoke choking out the glimmer of stars. The night she looked into her father's slack face but saw no recognition in his lifeless blue eyes before pulling his antique baseball bat from his dead hands.

That night, two weeks after her sixteenth birthday, when the world went sideways. _That_ night.

Her birthday's been creeping up for a while now, but no matter how hard she tries to ignore it, tried to pretend it's just another day that doesn't mean anything, she remembers her last birthday far too vividly. She bounced giddily through her school classes, raced home to find Mom putting the finishing touches on the cake — lemon cake with raspberry filling and white-chocolate frosting — and Dad coming home early as Troy and Jason teased her incessantly about her birthday present, which had turned out to be a family trip back to Earth to see the Vancouver Canucks' last home game before the playoffs. Their last trip together as a family before Jason left for basic.

Their last trip together, ever.

But now she's a year older and doesn't want to mark it, doesn't want to think about this particular milestone. It's too deeply entwined with the other. That Night.

_April is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land…_

Fatigue weighs down her bones as she carries her pack back to the shelter. Carlos was resting quietly when she left, Marcus and Tamlin watching over him as the younger children slept on. She has food now to last them a few days, and some medi-gel that should help with some of Carlos' injuries. It was a successful night, but she feels anything but successful as she walks through the shelter's front doors. That feeling only gets stronger when she realizes Tyrrana's been waiting up for her.

"Starting to think maybe you weren't coming back tonight," she says, mandibles flashing into a grin. She still has difficulty reading turian expressions, but Tyrrana's fairly easy to read, most of the time. Sarcasm is a language that crosses species. "Pretty sure I wouldn't have blamed you if you didn't."

"No," she says, sliding the pack from her shoulder and setting it gently on the ground. "It's just been…" Thena looks down at the bag, her train of thought leaving her for a moment. "It's been a bad night." She looks up then, only just hearing all of what Tyrrana said. "Wait, what? You wouldn't have—"

"Blamed you if you stayed out. Kind of thought you might."

Thena tilts her head. "I don't understand."

Rather than answering, Tyrrana beckons to Thena to follow her into one of the back rooms — the kitchen. On the table there are two bottles and two glasses. One bottle looks… _old,_ filled with dark amber liquid that appears to shimmer with iridescence as it catches the light. The liquid in the other bottle is a crisp sage green.

She looks from the bottles to Tyrrana and back again. When she finally does speak, she loads as many questions as possible into a single word. "…Tyrrana?"

"We don't really do it the same as you do, but turians observe the day of their birth, too." She scratches her chin, absently. "Typically, firearms are involved."

Birthday. Her _birthday._

"It's… it's okay," mumbles Thena, shaking her head. "You didn't have to— I didn't… even know that was today." It's a lie, and she knows it's a lie, and she also knows she's a _horrible liar_, but Tyrrana only shrugs.

"I found out humans don't come of age until eighteen—"

"It's still twenty-one in some places."

At this news, Tyrrana makes a face. "Twenty-one? Spirits. I was on my way to having my own command when I was twenty-one."

Thena blinks. This is the first Tyrrana's mentioned her own youth. "Really?"

"Well," she amends with a shrug and a dismissive flicking of her fingers. "It probably depends on who you ask. _I_ think I was on my way to having my own command. My XO probably didn't agree with me. Either way," she says, sliding into the seat and opening both bottles, "I think you've earned this. Take a seat and see how you like it. The green one's yours — it's from Thessia. Asari… gin's probably the closest approximation. At least that's what the bartender told me. You'll have to give it a try and tell me."

Frowning at the liquid, Thena admits, "I've never… uh, had gin."

"That makes two of us." She pours the green liquid first and pushes it toward Thena, then pours herself a drink.

"You didn't have to," Thena says, picking up the glass and taking a cautious, experimental sniff. The liquid smells sweet_,_ like perfectly-ripe pears, and when she takes a sip, it's ice cold as it slips and slides down her throat into her belly. It tastes better than she could have imagined anything that color _could_ taste.

"Any good?" Tyrrana asks.

"Really good," she answers, taking another, deeper sip.

"Yeah, well, go easy on it. It's supposed to have a hell of a kick. Nothing like ryncol, but I hear nothing _is._"

"Ryncol?" Thena asks. "What's that?"

"I don't say this a lot, kid, but you are _definitely_ too young for ryncol. It's foul shit. Probably the complete opposite of what you're drinking now."

As she swallows, Thena tries to really _taste_ the asari-made liquor — it doesn't taste like it's got a kick at all. If anything, there's a strange little tingle, like the bubbles in soda, but nothing like an actual _kick. _Tyrrana's browplates twitch upward a little as she tips her head, looking amused — but she doesn't offer another warning.

They drink together in silence for a while, when Thena finally glances up and asks, "What was it like?" before looking down again into her glass — there _are_ bubbles in the drink, she's noticing now. Tiny, _delicate_ bubbles, that don't so much rise to the top and fizz, but stay somehow suspended in the liquor.

"What was what like?" Tyrrana asks, leaning back in her chair a bit.

"You said you had your own command at twenty-one—"

"I said I _thought_ I did," she corrects Thena, extending one long finger at her. "Probably acted like I did, too."

"So… what _were_ you doing?" She hedges a little, moving the glass around in a tiny circle. "When you were my age?"

"Oh, _spirits,_" Tyrrana groans. "Your age? You've got no idea how long ago that was. I'm not sure I was ever your age."

The answer is so heartbreakingly familiar to something her father might've said that Thena freezes a little, then forces a smile, deciding it's a topic of conversation she'd be better off backing away from. "Never mind," she says quickly. "It's not a big deal. You just… don't ever… talk about yourself."

"Well, _that_ is something you and I have in common, kid. I could definitely say the same thing about you, y'know."

She shrugs. "There isn't a lot to tell." And there isn't, she feels — at least there's nothing that Tyrrana doesn't seem to know already.

"Sure there is. What do you want to be when you grow up?"

The question — the innocent, innocuous, _harmless_ question — hits Thena hard, so hard she actually sucks in a sharp, reflexive breath. "What?" she asks, barely above a whisper.

But Tyrrana's tone doesn't shift away from polite curiosity, and her expression remains inscrutable. "It's a fair question," she says. "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

It might be a fair question. But it's not one Thena's allowed herself to _consider_ since That Night_._ "I don't— _what?_"

"I wanted to be Primarch," Tyrrana goes on, downing the last of her drink and refilling the glass. Thena realizes her glass is empty, and despite the promise that the liquor has a kick, she refills her own glass. She doesn't _feel_ particularly… wrong. A little… tingly, maybe. And her limbs feel kind of weirdly heavy and light at the same time, but that's not any huge deal.

"Primarch?" Thena asks. Tyrrana nods and goes on to explain the turian Hierarchy to her, the ascension from tier to tier to tier .

"I figured I could reach the top of Palaven's chain of command by the time I was thirty. Thirty-five if I took my time about it." She chuckles and knocks back the rest of her drink. "I was cockier in my youth."

"But you left?"

"When you're cocky, you don't see how quickly things can go to hell, Thena. You don't realize the things going on in your own damn head because you're so full of your own hype that you don't see what's going on around you. That was me. I was on a great path, a _solid_ path. I _could_ have been Primarch. I was going to _reach_ Primarch. And then everything just…" She grimaces. "Went sideways. Stuff changed — not least of all my own priorities."

Thena wants to ask what happened, but… isn't sure she wants to hear the answer.

Gesturing with her empty glass, Tyrrana tells her, "Don't _ever_ compromise your values, _your_ priorities, just because someone tells you to. If something smells wrong, trust your gut and walk away. It's cold comfort later when all you can say in your defense was 'I was just following orders.' Because you've got to live with that for the rest of your life." And the pain in Tyrrana's voice is palpable; Thena's almost certain she can hear something vibrating in the subharmonics, something that just adds to the ache she hears in Tyrrana's voice.

"…Okay," Thena breathes, nodding slowly. She's suddenly _certain_ she doesn't want to know much more about Tyrrana's past. There are ghosts in the woman's eyes telling her far more than she's ever been prepared to hear. Thena looks again, down into her glass, and takes a drink. Swallowing takes effort, as if she's got a mouthful of sand instead of lightly bubbling, pear-scented liquid. As she takes a breath to speak, it dimly occurs to Thena how odd it is that the words in her head are so clear, how much _sense_ they make, but when she tries to get them from her brain to her mouth, it takes actual effort to speak clearly.

She rubs absently at her nose, only to find both of them are vaguely numb. "I… used to think I wanted to be a teacher, like my mom. I was… I was really good in history. Thought it was just… really cool how you can look back across the past and see patterns, y'know? People across years and years and _years_—centuries—making mistakes. Sometimes the same stupid mistakes — and… sometimes they win and sometimes they don't. And sometimes you don't realize someone's stupid mistake till a hundred years later, when it's too late to do anything about it. I… I liked that. History's kind of like… like a puzzle, yeah? The pieces fit together, but they don't always fit together the way you expect them to."

Tyrrana is nodding slowly, encouragingly, throughout this explanation. "Which is why you were able to tell Ben and Valla the history of humanity _finding_ the mass relays, but nothing about how they work."

Heat rushes to her cheeks as she grimaces. "Yeah. I mean, I'd _like_ to know. I just never…" Thena trails off. "They taught it in school, but…"

Tyrrana's chuckle is short, and far too knowing. "Not really that interesting at the time?"

Thena laughs a little in turn, refilling her glass again. A tiny bit of liquid sloshes from the bottle onto the table as she's pouring. She murmurs an apology, wiping the spill up with her sleeve. "No, it wasn't interesting. _At all._ Hell, I lived on a _farm._ The only times I ever even _saw_ the relays was when we…" She remembers, _forcefully_, the trip to Vancouver. Troy had sat next to her on the transport, babbling incessantly about the relay system and how it worked, and she'd not even made a token effort to pay attention. And, oh, how that stings now. Thena's vision blurs and she blinks once, letting tears fall as she swallows hard. "We, uh. Went. On a trip. Went back to Earth."

"It's okay, Thena."

"My… my brother," she manages, clearing her throat and dashing her tears away with her wet, pear-scented sleeve. Memories she's ignored for so long come pouring back, bringing a deep ache with them. It's so strange that the pain should be able to knock through the numbness that's settled over her, the comfortable haze of tingling fingertips, but it does, and soon the numbness goes horribly cold. "My younger brother. I had— I had two. Troy and Jason. He… wanted to be 'n engineer. Loved… figuring things out, taking 'em apart, putting them together again. He knew how the relays worked." She takes a deeper drink from the glass, as if the liquor's sweetness could wash away the bitter taste on her tongue. "Troy," she says again, because it's _important_ to say his name when she hasn't uttered it in almost a year. "His name was Troy. He… we were the only ones left when the batarians—" Her throat closes and the words _stop_ as a shudder wracks her frame. "He told me to go ahead. He'd catch up. I—I think—_no_." She _shoves_ back the sadness, the _grief_ threatening to overwhelm her. "No, I _don't think._ I _know_ he… diverted them. For me."

This time it was Tyrrana who refilled her glass. Thena hadn't even realized it was empty.

"Siblings," she mutters, leveling an amber gaze at Thena. "Even when they're making your life hell, they're making it better. They try to make your life better, and they make it hell instead."

"Speaking from 'sperience?" she asks, sniffling and rubbing at her face again.

"Speaking as the one who usually wound up making life hell, yeah." Leaning back in her chair, she gives herself a little shake, then picks up the glass and scowls at the liquid within. "I ought to know better. Turian brandy always makes me maudlin. I fucking _hate_ being maudlin."

"It… it's s'okay," Thena says, taking another drink. "But I think I should stop. I… I think yeah. Def'nitely should prob'ly stop." After this glass, she'll stop. Really. Then Thena blinks, and she knows a blink is quick — it happens so… it happens _in a blink_, but then there's something in front of her. Something small and square, about the size of a deck of cards. Something wrapped in shiny blue paper, tied off hastily with a white piece of ribbon.

She looks — _squints_ — down at the package. "Um."

"So, when a turian honors the day of birth," explains Tyrrana, resting her elbows on the small table, "it's, from what I can tell, it's _different_ from humans… we don't mark _growing older_ as an achievement on its own. Time will pass and we grow older with time — that's just… the way things are. Celebrating age for age's sake is like throwing a party every time the sun rises or sets. But we take that day to honor how we've grown during that year, the things we've learned or accomplished, tiers ascended—even acknowledging our mistakes, identifying them and vowing not to remake them. And, yeah, we honor the year's achievements, but more than that, it's a day for looking forward to new goals, new challenges, new tiers to ascend."

"I haven't…" Thena's throat closes again as she looks at the gift, not daring to touch it. "I haven't _done_ anything, though."

That makes Tyrrana laugh, as if she's in on a joke Thena can't quite grasp. "You survived. I've seen you, kid. Every damn day something new tries to kick you in the face, and if you don't dodge the blow, you deflect it, or you hit back. You've got a passel of kids following you around, _depending_ on you, and you come through for them."

She shakes her head numbly. "No— no, there you're— you're _wrong._ Lila and Elleigh and Prynn and—"

"You couldn't _control_ them, Thena. They were always going to do the things they were going to do. Those were their decisions, not yours, and it's not your fault that you couldn't make them make better decisions. You're stubborn as hell, and you don't take no for an answer, but people are still going to be people, and sometimes — not always, but _sometimes_ — you've got to let them make their own mistakes. Hopefully those mistakes won't get them killed, and they'll be able to learn from them later, but…" She sighed. "Those were not _your_ failures, okay?" Tyrrana then nodded at the gift Thena still wasn't touching. "Now open that. And before you ask, _yeah,_ that's an order."

Biting down on her bottom lip, Thena places one hand over the package and slides it closer to her. She pulls hesitantly on one end of the smooth, white ribbon, pulling the bow free, and the paper, folded precisely and perfectly around the package, comes loose enough for Thena to push aside the folds and look at what the wrapping is concealing.

"It isn't new," Tyrrana stays, as Thena pulls the omni-tool free from the paper. "But Jevia's worked some of her magic on it and—"

The small tool fits in the palm of her hand, and even through the haze clouding her mind, Thena can't fully wrap her head around with the enormity of the gesture. She blinks at it, then up at Tyrrana, then looks again at the gift. "Tyrrana. You. You've— you're giving me a—"

Tyrrana's mandibles snap as she interrupts briskly, "I _said_ it isn't new, so don't go telling me you can't accept it. It's _yours. _No arguments. Jev's even tweaked it for you. It's got a few… extra things that you might… things that might help you a little. I know I said you're stubborn, but kid? I've had more practice at it than you."

It takes some time — and Tyrrana's assistance — to get the omni-tool set up properly, but once it is, and once Thena pulls up the glowing orange interface, she can't really deny or ignore the gift. And how much she appreciates it.

"So like I was trying to tell you," Tyrrana says, scraping the chair across the floor and sitting beside Thena, "Jevia worked some of her tech magic on it. You've got a connection to the extranet, and… a couple of other things on there, too."

The "couple of other things" include several extranet subscriptions — one to a virtual library, others to several searchable databases covering topics from galactic military history to organic chemistry.

"For the next time one of the kids asks you something you don't know the answer to," Tyrrana explains as Thena taps through the various databases, scanning the breadth of knowledge suddenly at her fingertips. _Literally_ at her fingertips. She spends the next several minutes looking through entries on military history, bouncing around from species to species. The numbness and tingling from earlier has subsided, and the longer she tries reading entries, the more muddled they become in her head, but she doesn't want to stop, doesn't want to put the gift away. She taps a few words into the interface, pulling up the poem she's been trying so hard to remember:

_April is the cruellest month, breeding_

_Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing_

_Memory and desire, stirring_

_Dull roots with spring rain._

She reads the first few lines over and over again. Dull roots and spring rain. Maybe it's her own impaired state, but the words feel more meaningful, more profound than they ever have before. "Thank you," Thena breathes, looking up from the omni-tool's screen. "_Thank_ you."

With a lazy gesture, Tyrrana reaches up and musses Thena's bangs, saying, "May you ascend many tiers, may you exceed your potential; may you honor yourself and your family, and may you never remake your mistakes." She tilts her head with a smirk, adding, "Y'know, turian well-wishing's so damn formal. I've got to say, I kind of prefer how your people say it: Happy birthday, Thena. May your hangover tomorrow be light."


	6. F is for Foundation

When Nevvar went missing again, it took Thena exactly three seconds to figure out where he'd wound up. The kid was bright as hell, except when it came to anything resembling street smarts. She wondered how he'd come to end up on the Citadel at all — he didn't seem to… _fit_ anywhere; he _seemed_ like the kind of kid who actually _did_ belong home with his parents. She wondered if she'd been so awkward and clueless when she'd first arrived here. Pretty sure Tyrrana would give answer that question with a resounding _yes_, along with some complimentary laughter. Hell, there'd probably even be some guffawing.

Still, after getting picked up for vagrancy _three times_ in a month, Thena would've hoped Nevvar would learn not to loiter, or at least learn which parts of the Citadel cared if you loitered or not. And even though vagrancy was about as low as you could get on the crimes-and-misdemeanors totem pole, Captain Vakarian did not like to see the same faces pass through C-Sec. No repeat performers for that place.

It was Tyrrana's idea that Thena try to collect him, or at least demonstrate to C-Sec that someone was watching out for the kid, and could maybe hammer the point home to Nevvar that he needed to be more aware of his surroundings.

But as it turned out, she was too late.

"Kid's already been released," the bored C-Sec clerk told her. "Missed him by half an hour."

"So what exactly was he doing?" asked Thena, crossing her arms and glaring at the woman. One last gasp of a growth-spurt had evened her out just shy of five feet, ten inches — she could reach that height, or at least give the illusion of it, if she stood up straight, which she was doing at present. But as it turned out, the clerk did not get the opportunity to answer Thena's question. No, the answer came from behind her, in a voice that never failed to make her hackles rise.

"The young man was brought in on a vagrancy charge,_" _Captain Vakarian said, "—_again,_ might I add. The—"

"Third time this month," she finished for him. "Which makes me wonder exactly who registered the complaints, and exactly _what_ Nevvar was doing that was considered _vagrancy._"

"Is there something you're trying to imply, Shepard?" he asked lightly.

"Depends on what you're _inferring_, sir."

Her comment gave him pause, surprised him, even — Thena saw it it in the way he _blinked_ at her, the way his mandibles twitched outward before slamming back in, close to his face. He almost—_almost_ looked as if he were trying not to laugh, but the expression didn't last longer than a sliver of a second, and then it was gone.

"Implications and inferences aside, now that you're actually _here,_ there's a matter I wish to discuss with you."

"What, trying to see if you can get me arrested for sass?"

A beat of silence followed, during which time Vakarian turned and began walking sedately towards a door on the other side of the room. Mildly, he replied, "Would that I could do that, Shepard. Would that I could." He turned long enough to glance over his shoulder at her. "Coming?"

"Depends. Am I going to come out again?"

"That part is entirely up to you."

As much as she didn't _like_ the C-Sec captain, as much as he'd been a thorn in her side — and as much as she'd tried to be a thorn in _his_ — she'd never known him to be less than perfectly honest in his dealings. "Better make it fast," she told him, inclining her head and falling into step behind him. "I've got places to be."

"And hapless children to herd away from the Upper Markets?"

"Is _that_ where he got picked up?" she asked Vakarian's back, but never gave him a chance to answer. "_Damn_ it, I've told Nevvar and _told him_ to avoid the Upper Markets."

"And yet he continues there despite your guidance."

"He draws," she answered on a sigh as she took a look around them. The hallways were all bland and perfectly labyrinthine, but she could tell the route to the captain's office all the same. She'd certainly been there often enough, much to her continued annoyance. "That's all he's doing. Problem is, I know the Upper Market merchants don't give a damn what a duct rat is _actually_ doing, the fact that they're doing it in plain sight of the pretty people is what's pissing them off."

Vakarian paused in front of a locked door, keying in the entry code. The lock chimed once, then the doors slid open. It took a moment for Thena to realize he was waiting for _her_ to go in ahead of _him. _Brows furrowing, she sidled in past him and stood in the center of his office, hands linked behind her back.

"Sit," he told her, nodding at the chair directly across from his desk. It was a chair she knew well.

"I'll stand, if it's all the same to you."

"Very well," Vakarian replied, walking around her to take a seat behind his desk. He pressed his hands together, three long digits of either hand steepled as he bowed his head in evident thought.

The silence was almost maddening; Thena was aware that it couldn't have lasted more than a few seconds—_maybe_ ten—but silence standing in the C-Sec captain's office multiplied upon itself over and over and _over_ again until Thena was all but certain an hour had passed before the turian spoke.

"According to your file, you will come of age—by human standards—next month."

"That's right." She narrowed her eyes and tilted her head at him. "Mind if I ask what you're doing paying such close attention to my file?"

"Your name crosses my desk more than you know, Shepard. How you've managed to remain beneath the Alliance's notice—"

"For starters, I don't hang out in the Upper Markets," Thena interjected. Vakarian's browplates rose as he inclined his head at her.

"I suppose that's fair enough. My point, however, in speaking with you has less to do with how you've managed evasion in the past, and more how you plan to spend your future."

Her _future_? Of the things she expected to come out of Vakarian's mouth, that was the _last, _and her next question came out only a shade or two subtler than a blurt: "Why the hell are you concerned with my future?"

"As I said, you will have reached human adulthood." When she didn't seem to be piecing together the picture he was sketching for her, Vakarian leaned forward on his forearms. "Surely you do not plan on spending your adult years as a duct rat."

"That doesn't tell me why you give a damn."

She wouldn't have thought his mandibles could press any tighter against his face, but they seemed to be doing just that, giving the illusion of a human grinding his teeth. "Why do I give a damn? Why indeed. Tell me, just where do you expect to be in five years' time, young woman? Ten? Will you still be herding runaways and teaching them how to avoid the security cams and steal their next meal? And whether they return home or meet a more ignoble end, where does that leave you? Exactly where you began. Protecting those unable to protect themselves is not an unworthy goal, but you may as well be throwing your effort and determination into the vents. Do something, or in time you will vanish into obscurity as well — into the vents, or worse, into the Broker's pockets — and who will pick up your cause if — _when_ — there is nothing left of you?"

Thena stared. She found she could do little else _but_ stare. "What exactly are you saying, here?"

"I'm saying that you have before you a choice: you can choose to advance yourself, or you can choose to remain in the situation you've carved out for yourself on the station. And there are repercussions, no matter which choice you make."

"Choices?" she barked out in a dry, harsh laugh. "_Choices?_ What kind of _choices_ do you think I have available to me? If I go crawling back to the Alliance now… hell, you said it yourself: I'm an adult by human standards. There's nothing there for me."

"Are you quite certain? There are always choices, though they may not be apparent at first, though they may not be _appealing_. There are choices before you, Shepard." He leaned back in his chair, hands still flat on his desk. "The Alliance, for example. If you truly have a desire to protect those unable to do so themselves, there is almost certainly a place for you there."

"You're telling me I should join the military?"

"I'm suggesting you consider it in light of your other… options."

With an indelicate snort, Thena muttered, "Like I've got a whole lot of those."

"Precisely. But it is a matter worth your consideration. And you have a month to consider it." He paused a moment before going on to say, "Should you decide to take that option, return here and I will put you in contact with someone in the Alliance."

Shifting her weight from foot to foot, Thena tightened her arms around herself. "The Alliance is going to learn I've been dodging them for two years."

"If you're laboring under the misconception that they'll be _displeased_ to discover you've come out of hiding, you can stop right now," Vakarian told her, his tone dry. "In any event, I believe you'll find Lieutenant-Commander Anderson to be… appropriately discreet. Enough time has passed since the Mindoir raid that you should be able to slip into the system without a great deal of fuss."

"If that's even… what I want to do?"

"Exactly."

When she left Vakarian's office, Thena was bewildered — no other word for it. _Bewildered._ Maybe even a little baffled. The worst of it was, _he had a point._ She had no actual _marketable_ skills that would earn her any sort of decent pay, and as much as she liked Tyrrana, Thena couldn't deny that she'd been feeling at loose ends lately, and for many of the reasons Captain Vakarian mentioned. She was going to be eighteen soon, and what did she have to show for it? She hardly thought anyone in her family would be pleased knowing the kind of existence she'd scraped together for herself in the intervening years, and now…

Now she was starting to wonder if everything she'd done these two years, starting with running away, hadn't been because she needed something _else_ to focus on, something _else_ to keep her occupied, and what better preoccupation could she have hoped for than survival? As long as she was surviving, day in and day out, she didn't have to ask _what's next?_

Except Thena was starting to ask it anyway.

Nevvar was waiting for her outside Tyrrana's place. It was busy inside tonight, the kind of night where some of them were going to have to share cots or blankets — or both. He was hugging himself with his thin arms, dark head bowed. Someone must've told him she'd gone looking for him.

"Thena—" he began, peering up at her. They weren't too far apart in age, but Nevvar was a good six inches shorter than Thena. Never had it been more evident than right now.

"Don't," she replied shortly, cutting him off with a slicing motion. "I've told you enough times to stay the hell away from the Upper Markets, Nevvar. If you haven't been able to figure it out by now, I can't help you." Nevvar winced and Thena regretted her tone — not so much her words, but definitely her _tone_ immediately. Letting out a deep breath, she rubbed tiredly at the back of her neck. "Listen," she said, trying to rein in her anger and frustration. "Forget it. Just… just try to stay away from the Upper Markets."

"I thought it'd be okay! Jerry said—"

Jerry was a squirrely little troublemaker, no more than twelve, _maybe_ thirteen, whose main talent so far seemed to revolve around getting Nevvar in trouble. Nevvar was a good kid, he had a level head on his shoulders. He just needed to stay the hell away from Jerry. Hell, if _anyone_ would benefit from some time spent in a C-Sec cell, it was that kid.

"I don't give a damn what Jerry said," she told him sharply. "I'm not always going to be around, you know."

She hadn't realized she'd come to a conclusion that quickly, but saying the words felt… solid. Right.

In the following weeks, Thena tried to convince herself she _hadn't_ come to any sort of conclusion regarding Vakarian's… _suggestion._ She thought morosely of Jason. He'd been so damned _excited_ over becoming a marine; could she… could she do the same? It was a hell of a commitment, and not one she wanted to undertake just because she missed her elder brother, but she wondered, _really wondered_ if she could take that path herself.

The shelter roof was quiet, high enough above the foot traffic, though still far below the skycars that raced above. It was a good place to think, and an excellent place to think _alone._

When the rooftop hatch opened, she wasn't surprised to find Tyrrana herself climbing through, heaving herself to her feet.

"Been up here a while," the woman said. Thena shrugged.

"Just thinking."

"About?"

Expelling a long, deep breath, Thena pushed to her feet as well. "What comes next."

"That's something worth some thought, yeah." Striding easily to the building's ledge and glancing down, she asked Thena, "So what're your thoughts on it?"

Joining Tyrrana, Thena looked down, too. "I've got to do something, I think. Licked my wounds long enough." Folding her arms over her chest, she rocked back lightly on her heels, saying, on a chuckle, "That's the bitch about being a grown-up. Sometimes you've gotta start being a grown-up."

"So what's the plan, such as it is?"

"Joining up."

Tyrrana nodded once. "Any thought to which branch?"

"Before he was killed, my brother was going to be a marine. I think… I think I want to, too." She rubbed one hand hard across her mouth. It wasn't going to be easy — hell, it was going to be damned _hard._ The question was, though, would it be harder than the last two years had been? And even if the answer to that question was _yes,_ Thena couldn't feel herself backing away from the decision. In fact, the prospect left her feeling strangely… settled, for the most part. "I don't… I don't just want to ditch _them,_ though. Most of them've already been abandoned. I can't—"

"Get a mailbox account set up," Tyrrana told her with an easy shrug. "You can transfer credits into it — at least they'll be able to feed themselves that way." She paused, and the silence was weighty. "As for the rest… you're going to have to let them succeed or fail on their own, kiddo. You can't hold their hands forever."

They stood in companionable silence for several moments before Thena peered up at Tyrrana through her too-long bangs. "Can I come back and visit? You know. Afterward? When I get time?" Odd to be thinking about the prospect of shore leave before she'd even signed up — in fact, it was an odder concept than _signing up_ was proving to be.

"Hell, Thena, if you _didn't_ drop by I'd come and hunt your ass down."

She grinned. "So that's a yes."

Tyrrana clapped her hard on the shoulder. "Definitely a yes."


	7. G is for Gauntlet

Vancouver looked so much larger than she remembered it, and she wasn't even on the ground yet.

"Looking a little green around the gills there, Shepard."

Thena looked askance at Lieutenant-Commander Anderson. Her hesitation lasted barely a breath before she joked weakly, "It's a good thing nobody told me this was going to be easy, sir."

"There's just a few people down there who want to talk to you."

"I… know."

"Having trouble buying it?"

Thena shrugged, but gave no answer beyond that—and despite the answer she didn't give, Anderson gave a grunt of acknowledgement and understanding.

As Captain Vakarian had assured her, Anderson had been perfectly discreet. He was a solid, no-nonsense man whose dark eyes had sized her up shrewdly the moment she introduced herself—hell of a poker face on that man, and she wondered how well he'd do pitted against Tyrrana in a game of Skyllian Five; probably not very well, because _no one_ played well against Tyrrana—but his eyebrows lifted, betraying his surprise the moment she said the words "Mindoir survivor." And now, as he sat in the seat beside her, following her gaze out the tiny window, he said, "This isn't Arcturus, and you're not on trial here, remember."

"I know," she said again, but it was impossible to _keep_ from squirming. Anderson noticed. Of course he did.

"You've got to admit, Shepard, not a lot of people can pull off what you did. Hiding from the Alliance for _two years_, right under their noses?" He looked out the window again and shook his head. "There are going to be questions. There usually are when someone pulls something… unexpected. It's not half the circus it could be."

"…Thanks."

"Hell, can't say I'd want the fanfare either. You didn't want to be found. I do understand that much. And now something's changed your mind."

She drew in a deep breath, held it a moment, then exhaled slowly through her nose as she looked down at her hands. Her nails were bitten nearly to the quick. There was a hangnail on her middle finger; she picked at it until it bled, until the right words came to her. "I've been hiding long enough," Thena finally said, her voice low. "Before… before, all I knew was that I didn't want to go where someone else told me, and I didn't want to live with a bunch of strangers just because somebody else decided it." Granted, there was the small fact that she'd been living with strangers for the better part of two years, but that was _different._ Thena wasn't sure how it was different, or how to explain that it was, only that it _was. _That had been something she _chose._ Repercussions of her own that she had to live with, one way or another. _That's_ how it was different.

"That was before. What about now?"

"It's high time I grew up," she said with a shrug. "I couldn't keep doing what I was doing, and for a lot of reasons. I…" Thena looked out the window again, then back to Anderson, and down again to her hands. "I…" But the words wouldn't come, and she shook her head, mumbling, "This probably sounds stupid, but… I want—I want their deaths to… _mean_ something, and… and for that to happen, I have to see what I can make out of myself first." Once more she pulled her gaze up to meet Anderson's. "Did you know, I—" The words wouldn't come for a moment; they hovered, lodged in her throat, until she pushed them forward. "My little brother died so I could escape — so I could live. It's time to do something with that life."

Anderson's shrewdness and curiosity vanished, and nothing but clarity remained. "And you thought it's a hell of a lot better to do that when you're ready than to fake it when you're not?"

"Something like that, sir."

"That doesn't sound stupid at all."

Vancouver grew larger as the shuttle drew closer, and Thena's ears popped as the pressure in the cabin shifted. She grimaced, rubbing her right ear against her shoulder, still watching the window as the craft settled over the Alliance facility, which was far larger—and, if she were going to be honest, more _intimidating_—than she'd even imagined.

"So," Anderson began, grunting a little as the shuttle landed, "what do you think are the chances you'll give an answer half that eloquent when someone else asks you?"

Thena considered this, looking again at her hands, her bloodied fingernail.

"With respect, sir, I think it'll be a miracle if I don't throw up."

Anderson fell quiet, turning over her reply a moment. "If nothing else, that'd change the subject."

#

The room was surprisingly large, with high, vaulted ceilings, and windows that stretched from the polished floor to those very high ceilings. The committee that had been organized to… _greet_ her formed a semicircle around a vast table, its dark wood-grain streaking stylishly across the tabletop. There were eight of them, case workers that had been assigned to Mindoir survivors, psychiatrists, an "education specialist and coordinator," and perhaps most worryingly, a man who'd been introduced as an "Alliance public-relations liaison." It wasn't so much the introduction itself, but the dark expression that had settled on Anderson's face in response.

First, they'd wanted confirmation she was who she said she was. The biotag scan she'd undergone on the Citadel wasn't confirmation enough; she had to submit to several more scans checking both her biotag and her DNA itself. Once it was determined Thena was who she said she was, quiet bemusement settled over the large room. They all stared at her, as if they couldn't quite puzzle out how she'd come to be there. And maybe that was a fair question; the circumstances that had brought here here weren't _normal_ ones. And she doubted it'd go over well if she'd said, "Well, the turian C-Sec captain encouraged me to examine my career options _beyond_ professional loiterer and scavenger." Her reasons—her _real_ reasons—went deeper than that, anyway. Maybe she just looked too _normal_ to them. Maybe they were surprised she'd survived two years without the Alliance's help. Maybe they were surprised she'd survived at all.

The head psychiatrist, a neatly pressed redheaded woman with a brisk manner, and a vaguely British accent, asked her, "Why _did_ you avoid the Alliance for the past two years, Miss Shepard?"

The question made her blink, and she realized belatedly that she'd done a lousy job of hiding her surprise. All right, so maybe they weren't wondering _how,_ but _why._ But the _why_ was almost a worse question to ask. _Why would you refuse our assistance?_ The _why_ of it implied she was dumb, or foolish, or… or _deficient_ somehow. _Why_ seemed to suggest she hadn't known what she was doing.

"Why?" she echoed?

Neatly-Pressed nodded. "Do you disagree such a decision might be indicative of impaired judgment, given the trauma you'd been through? Perhaps a misplaced fear of—"

_No. _

"I knew what I was doing," Thena countered, her voice startlingly clear in the large room. "I may have been… grieving, but I _knew_ what I was doing. I was perfectly aware of the choice I was making. Don't make it sound like I wasn't." She glanced around her, realizing she was surrounded by shocked expressions, save one: Anderson looked… pleased. Proud, almost. Maybe.

One supportive face was all she needed.

"I'm not going to say I screwed up and that I'm sorry I ran away, because I'm _not_." She looked around; most of the faces registering shock were now looking… confused. Disapproving. _Concerned_.

She didn't want their concern.

"Did you know I didn't get to say goodbye to any of my family? None of them knew I was going to make it out safely. None of them knew I was going to survive. None of them know it—or can know it—now. So I'm _sorry,_" she said, her voice too sharp, too loud and harsh, the room's acoustics doing precisely squat to conceal the rawness of her emotions. "I'm sorry if I didn't _jump_ at the chance to be placed in a foster home. I didn't _want _to be be stuck into a family of strangers. You're asking me why I avoided the Alliance for two years? That's why. Batarians took my family away, and the Alliance wanted to give me a new one that I never asked for and didn't want. Fact is, I would rather've been on my own than have a family of strangers forced on me."

And then the burst of adrenaline that had fueled her words ebbed away, leaving her with the shaky realization that she'd really and truly given voice to ideas and thoughts that had been growing inside her for the past two years. Words she'd frequently thought but never _said._ It was exhilarating. It was terrifying.

Suddenly, Thena felt like she _might actually_ throw up.

Her outburst spurred the discussion on; the rest of the meeting reviewed her options, if she was indeed serious about joining the Alliance—

"I can't see how Shepard here might be anything but serious about that," interjected Anderson.

The education specialist—a short, squat man with wispy blond hair—cleared his throat and tapped rapidly at his datapad. "Well. There are steps to be taken, of course. Provided Miss Shepard _is_, er, as you seem to think, Lieutenan-Commander Anderson, _serious—_"

"I am," Thena said, clearly.

"Yes. Well. If you are serious, miss," said Short-and-Squat, and Thena was coming to hate the way the man said _serious, _heaping it with sneering condescension that too many adults seemed to manage so easily, "there are steps to be taken and—and _protocol_ to be followed to reintegrate you into the system. There is _also_ the matter of your missing schooling, which will delay any—"

"I believe Shepard is eligible for the A2ET program," Anderson interjected again, and in a tone that seemed almost to dare the other man to argue with him.

Neatly-Pressed exchanged a dubious look with Short and Squat, and shook her head, saying, "That is a very specialized program—"

"A program that allows eligible candidates to demonstrate a sufficient knowledge base for admission into the Academy," said Anderson. "I know what the program is; I wouldn't have suggested it if I didn't."

Neatly-Pressed sniffed and inclined her head. "Miss Shepard will have to agree to a battery of psychological evaluations, first. She must be deemed fit for the program and consequential Alliance recruitment."

Anderson shot Thena a perfectly readable look, and Thena stepped forward, lifting her chin and making no effort to hide her defiance as she said, "I don't have anything to hide. I've done harder things in the past two years than prove I'm not crazy."

"Very well then, Miss Shepard," Neatly-Pressed said. "You are excused while this committee works out the particulars."

#

Anderson led her to a small courtyard, lined with benches and immaculately tended gardens in raised stone flowerbeds.

"You didn't throw up, I noticed," he pointed out.

"Or pass out. Or do anything else stupid and embarrassing," she replied, sitting heavily upon one of the benches, then slouching forward and resting her elbows on her knees. The sore hangnail was throbbing now. Everything was throbbing, not the least of which was her head. "What was that thing you said?" she asked, squinting up at Anderson. "A2-something?"

"It's an accelerated college preparedness program. Usually it's saved for recruits wanting early admission into the Academy. High enough test scores mean they're ready for the level of work expected from them." He sat at the other end of the bench. "Best subject in school?"

"History," she answered promptly. "Did pretty well in behavioral sciences, math…"

"You should be able to test out of those without too much trouble. Worst?"

She made a face. "Physics."

"So we won't be placing you in a flight program," he said with a chuckle. "It's not going to be easy, but I think you'll be able to do this."

Thena looked at her hangnail, then curled that hand into a fist, hiding the reddened fingertip. "What if I can't?"

"That part's up to you, but if you're serious about joining up—and I'm convinced you are—it's either this, or making up the classes you've missed in a more… traditional setting, on more traditional timeframe."

"Two years."

He nodded. "A2ET is harder, but you'll get results without spinning your wheels."

#

The quarters were small and plain, but with a wide window that looked out over Vancouver. Thena stood in front of that window, hardly able to believe she was here at all. The lateness of the hour and the exhaustion seeping into her bones, leaving her body feeling stiff, her limbs heavy — all of it was enough to reassure her that she was in fact here, and she had in fact spent a majority of her day either in conference with the committee, or waiting outside while the committee was in conference without her.

Anderson's motion that she be enrolled in the A2ET program was accepted, but on the condition that Thena underwent a thorough psychological and physical evaluation. She would remain at the installment for a week, after which point a decision would be made, one way or the other.

The city twinkled under a nearly-dark sky and Thena sighed, resting her forehead against the cool window. For the first time in a long time, she was alone and truly _felt_ alone. Her quarters were small but quiet—Zakera Ward had never been quiet—and there was no one on the complex that counted as a friend. For all that Anderson was clearly an ally, he was too far in a position of authority to be a friend.

She wondered what time it was on the Citadel.

Soon her omni-tool's glow lit the small room, and Thena tapped rapidly against the holo-interface.

**_MESSAGE SENT: 4 APR 72: 21.07_**

**_FROM: . .CN114690002_**

**Tyrrana,**

**Hi. Made it to Earth. Late here.**

**Thena**

**_MESSAGE RECD: 4 APR 72: 21.25_**

**_FROM: .CIT_**

**Hey, kiddo.**

**How's it going?**

**Tyr**

**_MESSAGE SENT: 4 APR 72: 21.45_**

**_FROM: . .CN114690002_**

**Been in conference w/committee all day. Tired.**

**T**

**_MESSAGE RECD: 4 APR 72: 22.10_**

**_FROM: .CIT_**

**Problems?**

**Tyr**

**_MESSAGE SENT: 4 APR 72: 22.27_**

**_FROM: . .CN114690002_**

**Got a week of psych evals to prove I'm sane & have been conditionally approved for accelerated ed. program.**

**T**

**_MESSAGE RECD: 4 APR 72: 22.48_**

**_FROM: .CIT_**

**The condition being that you pass the psych eval?**

**Tyr**

**_MESSAGE SENT: 4 APR 72: 22.56_**

**_FROM: . .CN114690002_**

**Yup.**

**T**

**_MESSAGE RECD: 4 APR 72: 23.14_**

**_FROM: .CIT_**

**How're you holding up?**

**Tyr**

**_MESSAGE SENT: 4 APR 72: 23.30_**

**_FROM: . .CN114690002_**

**Tired. Angry. Frustrated. Pretty sure I'm still sane, though.**

**T**

**_MESSAGE RECD: 4 APR 72: 23.52_**

**_FROM: .CIT_**

**That's probably the sanest reaction, under the circumstances.**

**You're gonna be great. Give 'em hell.**

**Tyr**

**_MESSAGE SENT: 5 APR 72: 00.11_**

**_FROM: . .CN114690002_**

**Miss you guys.**

**T**

**_MESSAGE RECD: 5 APR 72: 00.29_**

**_FROM: .CIT_**

**Of course you do. You're not missing much. Same ol' same ol'. **

**Vakarian says hi.**

**Tyr**

**_MESSAGE SENT: 5 APR 72: 00.40_**

**_FROM: . .CN114690002_**

**Ha ha. Very funny. Good thing I'm sane. I'd ****_have_**** to be crazy to believe that.**

**T **

**_MESSAGE RECD: 5 APR 72: 00.53_**

**_FROM: .CIT_**

**Get some sleep, Thena. You need to sound not-crazy in the morning.**

**And maybe a few of the foreseeable mornings.**

**Be good. **

**Tyr**

#

"So do you want the bad news or the good news first?" Tyrrana asked, shutting down her omni-tool and leaning back in her chair.

"How bad is the bad news?" Narius inquired, holding the bottle of brandy over Tyrrana's glass.

"How 'bout you pour, and I'll tell you when to stop."

"Not the most accurate scale, but…" Frowning, Narius let the liquid splash into Tyrrana's glass. By the time she told him to stop, he'd poured about two fingers of the liquor. "So it's bad," he said, pouring himself the same amount, "but not _dire._"

"No, not dire," she said on a sigh. But her tone seemed to say _not yet._ Tyrrana didn't pick up her drink right away, choosing instead to turn the glass around in circles between her fingers, looking troubled. That in itself was troubling; his sister was not typically a _worrier._

"Are you going to tell me?"

The glass stopped its circular path. "Evidently she's going to have to prove to the Alliance that she's… fit for recruitment. Even making up her schooling is contingent on her passing an evaluation."

Narius frowned. That didn't seem too terribly unfair. If she'd been out of the system for two years, it was better for her superiors to understand her capabilities and qualifications before attempting to prepare her for a military life or any sort of specialization beyond that. "What kind of evaluation?" he asked, taking a drink.

Tyrrana's mandibles tightened as she tapped one talon against the rim of the glass. "Psychological," she said, taking no care at all to conceal the irritation from her tone. Her subharmonics _screamed_ with bitterness, but she downed her entire drink before Narius could comment on it. "A week's worth of psychological evaluations."

_That_ made Narius sputter. "_Spirits,_ a _week?_ A _week's_ worth of psych evals? You've got to be kidding me. _Blackwatch_ doesn't even conduct a week's worth of evals on its recruitment candidates."

Her eyes darkened as she nodded, pouring herself a second drink. "Tell me about it. She's conditionally approved for an accelerated education program, but—"

"But only if she passes her evaluation."

"Exactly. And that, brother dear," Tyrrana intoned, taking a generous swig of brandy, "is why you're the detective."

"It's ridiculous, even by _human_ standards," he groused. "I can understand a physical, and even a psych eval—_singular_—if only to establish a benchmark before reintegrating her. But this? This is absurd that she should have to jump through…" Narius noticed his sister giving him a strangely ponderous look. "What?" he asked, aggravation resonating in his subvocal tones.

"…Nothing," Tyrrana drawled out after far too long a pause.

"That isn't a _nothing_ expression you're wearing."

"Well, excuse me for noticing," she stated primly, "but you're surprisingly _displeased_ about this."

"Because it's—"

"Absurd. Ridiculous. Yes, I heard. You're just getting a bit… _tetchy,_ is all." She paused. "Over a human." She paused again, _maddeningly._ "One _you_ wanted to send _back _to the Alliance, as I recall it."

"And now _you're_ being ridiculous," Narius retorted, draining his glass. Tyrrana refilled it almost immediately.

"Do you think there's a chance she'll fail? Is that what you're afraid of?"

"Not in the least," he answered without hesitation. After taking a drink, he asked his sister, "What about you?"

"Well. _Maybe_," Tyrrana replied, holding her glass up and tilting it, watching the liquid move slowly back and forth. "Maybe," she said again. "She'd have a problem if we hadn't intervened first."

Narius chuckled despite himself. Quite like Tyrrana to take that kind of credit. "So," he began, taking another swallow of brandy, "how do you think it'll play out?"

Tyrrana's grin was sudden. Sharp. Fierce. "Oh, I'm sure she'll be herself. That's all she'll have to be." She tilted her head, amber eyes far too sharp as she watched him. "What about you? And no fibbing—you know I'll know if you try."

Narius considered his words carefully before draining his glass. "What do I think?" he echoed rhetorically. After a moment, he allowed himself a grin that was perhaps not as sharp or fierce as his sister's, but a grin all the same. "I think she's going to make them wish they'd never doubted her."


	8. H is for Handpicked

"What've you got, Caldwell?" Thena asked into the comm. She signaled to Philips and after a second, he signaled back in kind—he'd spotted Cadet Caldwell in his scope, scanning the area for anyone who might spot her before she spotted them.

"I'm reading four in the first passage," she replied her voice low as she rattled off their coordinates. "Pistols mostly, a few assault rifles."

"Shotguns?" Thena asked into the comm. "Snipers? Heavy weapons?"

"Negative, Shepard. Pretty bare bones from what I can see."

"All right. Come on back. Philips, I want you to stay up there, keep an eye out."

The deep voice crackled tightly through her comms, "Got it, Shepard," which Thena thought strange—Cadet Philips was always good for a smart remark or a joke, and when she looked up above, where he'd hidden himself away on a second level catwalk, situated snugly between and behind several crates, she could see the sniper looked… troubled. Frowning, she tapped the comm again. "Philips. Ray, you okay up there?"

"Yeah. Just… keeping an eye on Caldwell, Shep."

"There a problem?"

"Not sure yet," he replied after a brief hesitation.

She frowned, squinting upward. "Let me know if we've got a problem then?"

Louisa Cosenza frowned up at Thena, dark eyes wary. "Did he see something wrong?"

"He didn't say so," Thena replied, glancing up again at Philips. "Probably just having a hard time tracking Caldwell in that cloak."

Cadet Cosenza scowled, lowering her voice and muttering, "She's goddamn erratic in that thing."

Thena shot Cosenza a stern look and the other cadet straightened her shoulders and busied herself with the battery of programs on her omni-tool. Bare seconds later, Caldwell was coming around a corner, her tactical cloak timing out just as she slid into cover.

"All right. Caldwell, soon as your cloak recharges, we're out. What's there for tech out there?"

Cadet Caldwell shook her head, glossy dark curls bouncing. "Not a hell of a lot. Mostly weaponry."

That sounded… suspiciously easy. "Okay," she said slowly. "You take point. Cosenza, do what you can for cover—Caldwell's got the lightest weight, so she's your first priority. We push through the gauntlet and head for the munitions cache on the far side of the base. Philips, you read?"

"Loud 'n clear, Shep."

"Keep up, but stay high. We'll clear everyone out we can. You just—"

"Watch your backs." She heard a snap, then the rifle's hum. "Can do."

The base mock-up was empty enough and quiet enough to send every one of Thena's jangling nerves on edge. There were consoles and doorways, niches and elevators, and hostiles could pop out of any one of those locations—or all of them at once—and take them out. It was a short mission: make it from the LZ through the enemy base, down and around to a warehouse that, for the purposes of the exercise, was a cache of stolen Alliance weapons.

Thena didn't dare think for a moment it was going to be _easy._ Everything was too still and too quiet. Nothing this still and quiet ever went _easily. _She didn't entirely trust Caldwell's report, either, which nagged at her. There was something more there the scout hadn't seen—had to be. Caldwell was good, no doubt about that, but was she overconfident, too?

_Faith in your team,_ she reminded herself. _If Caldwell counted four hostiles and nothing but weapons, that's probably what's out there. Maybe a few extra surprises to keep us on our toes though. Keep that in mind._ She echoed these thoughts to her team; Caldwell and Cosenza gave terse nods, while Philips' staticky "Gotcha Shep" crackled in her comm.

"Right. Move out."

Caldwell's cloak reactivated with a soft buzz, hiding her body but for the barest, blurriest outline just easy enough for them to follow. The shotgun Thena carried didn't have the weight she was used to—the paint-pellets loaded into all of their exercise weapons were far lighter than the standard Alliance-issued models they used for target practice and in live ammo drills. The triggers on these models were also far more sensitive than the standard-issue guns, which meant they all had _just one more thing_ on their minds.

Then came the distant _pop_ of a gun, and the whistle of a single paint pellet zinging by her ear.

"Sniper," she breathed. "_Fuck._ Sniper! _Get into cover,_" she shouted, grabbing at Cosenza's shoulder and heaving the shorter cadet forward. "Ray!" she shouted hoarsely into the comm. "Tell me you see him!"

"I do," he said grimly. "Angle's bad, though."

Tiny red pellets were flinging downward now—Caldwell was down already, lying facedown on the concrete, her clothes smeared with red. Cosenza was neatly hidden behind a pile of crating, but there was no telling how long or how well that cover would last. "Let me see if I can shift him out of hiding spot," she said, raising her own gun. From behind she heard Cosenza shout something, and Thena realized she _could_ hear Cosenza over the shotgun's sharp pop.

The trigger clicked, but no practice ammo came out. She was in the middle of a red zone—_literally_—and had no functioning weapon to speak of. Thena swore again, throwing her gun to the floor and turning to sprint for the nearest cover. But as she turned, something sharp and cold _snapped_ against her back. She felt the wetness of the paint spreading across the back of her shirt already, and with a resigned sigh, she lowered herself to the ground, "dead" until the exercise was finished.

###

Aching legs dragging like lead weights, Thena opened the door to the—_thank God_—empty barracks. The small, modest space had two sets of bunk beds, one against either wall, and Thena made a beeline for the bottom bunk on the left, collapsing face-down into the pillow. Every muscle trembled, _screamed_ at her for the abuse she'd put them all through earlier, and her clothes were soaked through with sweat. Sweat and macabre splatters of red paint. The paint, at least, was dry—couldn't say the same about the sweat. After a moment, climate control switched on (which Thena was privately convinced had something to do with the insane amount of heat she was generating), and the back of her t-shirt grew cold and then colder, until goosebumps rose on her arms. Intellectually she knew it was time to push to her feet and hit the showers, and that would've posed less of a problem if she could gather up with will to _move._ If it was even remotely possible for her legs to give her the middle finger, she was reasonably certain they would have.

The door slid open, and Thena's blissful silence—punctuated by only a few groans—came to an end. Juliana Barker, Akemi McTavish, and Renata Stevens all tromped in; Barker and McTavish dropped onto the bottom bunk opposite Thena's—Barker's bunk—and Stevens sat on the edge of Thena's bed, eliciting a groaned, "Go away."

"Hell of a show, Shepard," Stevens told her, bouncing lightly on the mattress. "Philips said that took some balls to—"

"Not balls," muttered Thena, gathering just enough strength to turn her head. Wouldn't do to suffocate herself in her pillow, not at all. "Stupidity. So much stupidity." She rolled over with another groan.

McTavish shrugged. "Not to hear Philips tell it." She paused. "Or Commander Harris."

"The op went to shit and I took ten miles for it," Thena deadpanned, wincing as just the words _ten miles_ made her calves begin to cramp, followed by her shins. She swore, grimacing, and stretched her legs. Ten miles. In full gear. The only saving grace was the fact that it wasn't summer.

"I overheard Commander Harris tell Captain LaFlamme you took responsibility for the op going south, but _he_ told her he suspected it had to do with Caldwell fucking up. She moved out of position early, or something?" Stevens asked.

"Yeah, well, that'll teach me to have Caldwell take fucking point, won't it? That part was my call. So yeah, I fucked it up."

"Yeah, well, Harris told LaFlamme," Barker said, lowering her voice conspiratorially. "_We_ think he thinks she botched it intentionally."

This had also occurred to Thena in the moments after the op had gone bad, and for at least seven of the ten miles she ran. Tanya Caldwell was a top-of-her-class hacker, and one hell of a scout. Rumors abounded that, on her own time at least, she developed her own mods for her personal tactical cloak, and even more rumors those mods weren't Alliance-approved—and those were probably rumors Caldwell had started herself; she seemed the type who'd enjoy a little mystery around herself. Besides that, everyone knew her father, an exec at the Sirta Foundation, kept her in tech and cutting-edge omni-tools. She certainly complained loudly and long enough about being _forced_ to use Alliance standard-issue equipment, particularly during op exercises.

The thing was, Caldwell had wanted to lead the op. But for reasons unknown to Thena, Commander Harris had tagged _her_, and she'd chosen her team accordingly. Of course she'd chosen Caldwell as scout—she was lithe and quiet and quick. In a word, she was _talented._ It made sense to put her on point. She set Thena's teeth on edge, sure, but Caldwell knew what she was doing, or was supposed to; at the end of the day, Thena didn't have to be best friends with Cadet Caldwell, as long as they both did their jobs—and Thena had trusted Tanya to _do her damn job_.

But she'd come back from scouting and told the rest of the team which hostiles were where, conveniently neglecting to mention the sniper hidden high and out of sight. The whole team died—Caldwell included—their BDUs splattered with garish red paint where the pellets had exploded with a sting against their bodies. And those pellets had hurt like a bitch; Thena could feel the bruises coming up even now.

"No way Caldwell missed that sniper," McTavish said, shaking her head. "No _way._"

Privately Thena wanted nothing more than to believe that, but even stronger than her desire to believe was her desire _not_ to sound paranoid. "She made a mistake," Thena mumbled, turning her head back into the pillow. The words tasted foul on her tongue, like the lie they were. "It happens."

But Stevens shook her head stubbornly. "Rest of your team said she compromised the op."

"When?" Thena asked into her pillow.

"While you were running."

She lifted her head a fraction to send Stevens a baleful look. "So, what, they all ratted on Caldwell then and there?"

Barker let out a long, aggrieved sigh. "_No._ He met with everyone separately."

"Then how did—"

"Are you kidding?" snapped Stevens, very clearly losing patience with Thena's evident wallowing. "Philips and Cosenza saw it. Fuck, Philips was watching her through the fucking _scope._"

That was enough to make Thena go very, very still before flinging herself over on her back and sitting up, every ache, every complaining muscle shoved aside the the moment. "Say that again?"

"Philips. You know," she drawled. "Had him on your team? From Nebraska? Corn-fed sniper? 'Bout the size of an ox?"

"I had him covering Caldwell while she was out ahead."

"And he _was._" Stevens folded her arms, looking smug. "Every time the cloak went out, he saw whatever she was doing_, _whether Caldwell wanted him to see it or not."

Thena processed this, piece by piece. Caldwell hadn't just blown the op, she'd _sabotaged it?_ After a few seconds, she shook her head. "I don't think it matters. She was still part of my team—I _chose her._"

"You were supposed to know she'd pull some crap like that?" asked Stevens. "Who the fuck sabotages an op and compromises the whole fucking team?"

"Caldwell was _my choice,_" she said again. "I'm responsible for her. If she blows the op—even if she does it on purpose, that reflects on _me_." Thena pushed herself up with trembling arms, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. There, she'd sat up. That hadn't been so difficult, right? If she could sit, then she could stand. If she could stand, then she could make it to the shower. Better and better.

"Listen," Thena said wearily, reaching down to massage one still-aching shin. "Just don't… don't let Caldwell know you think she blew the op on purpose. I think she's the type to take it personally." Her roommates exchanged dubious looks, but before Thena could comment on that, her omni-tool chimed with an incoming message. She pulled up the display, fingers passing over the interface, revealing a message from Captain LaFlamme's account.

Shit.

_MESSAGE SENT: 07 MAY 73: 14.38_

_Cadet Shepard:_

_Requesting your presence in my office at 1600 hrs. Please do not be tardy._

_Regards,_

_CAPT Audrey LaFlamme_

"Fantastic," Thena muttered. "Just completely damned fantastic."

Stevens read the message over her shoulder before Thena could hide it, and let out a low whistle. "Yeah. Commander Harris must've said _something_ to LaFlamme."

"Hey, if I'm lucky I'll only get more miles to run, right?" she asked, pushing herself unsteadily to her feet. "Or maybe guns to clean." And that was if she was _lucky. _Thena didn't want to think what would happen if she _wasn't_ lucky. And she especially didn't want to have to tell Tyrrana she'd screwed up—and this did feel like a pretty monumental screw-up—barely a full year in. Thena would gladly clean every gun in the academy's armory until graduation to avoid having to face _that._

"Shepard, come on," Barker said as Thena took slow steps toward the small shared washroom. "Thena—"

But Thena just put up a hand, stopping her. "Jules, no. No more talking about this until I've seen LaFlamme."

Barker and McTavish subsided, but Stevens looked mutinous. "Mind if we burn Caldwell in effigy while you're gone?"

"As long as it wasn't my idea and you keep it off my bed, I don't give a damn what you do," she replied tiredly, closing the door behind her. Once alone, Thena pulled the sweaty, paint-stained clothes from her body, ignoring her trembling, complaining limbs, tossing them in the corner before taking a shower every bit as hot as she could possibly stand it. She didn't particularly want to think too hard or too closely on whatever was awaiting her down in Captain LaFlamme's office, and so she focused instead on the tasks directly before her: scrubbing the paint from her exposed skin, combing out her damp hair and twisting it back neatly and out of the way, changing into fresh regs before squaring her shoulders, waving a good-bye to her roommates (huddled together in conference, which was in itself enough to worry Thena), and starting the long trek to Captain LaFlamme's office.

It was a hell of a hike across the campus, the weather switching from overcast and cool, to drizzle and a darker sky that held the promise of heavier rain later. As she walked, she played the op over and over in her head. What else could she have changed? What else could she have done? Short of choosing a different infiltrator, Thena didn't know. Caldwell was supposed to be the best. What did you do when the best made a mistake? Worse, what did you do when the best _screwed over you_ _and the whole team_? She didn't know. The fact that she might have to _expect_ betrayal was one thing Thena hadn't ever had to consider before.

By the time she reached Captain LaFlamme's office, Thena was damp throughout. She was also ten minutes early.

The smartly uniformed assistant seated at a desk by the captain's door and looked up when Thena approached; it was hard to miss her, she suspected, _particularly_ the way her wet boots squeaked against the flooring.

"She's waiting for you," was all he said before opening the door for Thena and letting her pass through. The lion's den.

And a hell of a den it was, too. Captain Audrey LaFlamme's office was the last place any academy recruit wanted to find themselves; she had a reputation that included no tolerance for laziness and even less for stupidity. _This_ was the last stop for recruits before they got kicked out and sent home.

For all that, she was an unassuming woman. She was maybe a little taller than average height, though still shorter than Thena by a few centimeters; her chestnut brown hair was cut into a short bob that barely reached her jaw. There were, Thena saw, streaks of silver woven through the older woman's hair, some near her temples, and a thin chunk of it that fell from her hairline, swept aside and tucked behind one ear. Her eyes were sharp hazel, and those eyes were fixed on Thena even now.

"Come in, Cadet Shepard," said the captain, standing and effectively cutting Thena off before she could so much as salute. She gestured to one of the leather chairs across from her expansive wooden desk upon which was an alarmingly thick file labeled with Thena's name. "Sit." As Thena drew closer, Captain LaFlamme narrowed those sharp eyes at her and cocked one eyebrow. "And for heaven's sake, _breathe._"

It wasn't until Thena inhaled that she realized she'd been holding her breath. "Yes, ma'am," she said quietly, taking the seat offered to her. "Sorry, ma'am." She sat perched upon the edge of the chair, hands braced against her knees, partly for the support and partly so the fabric of her pants would soak up the sweat coming off her palms. She swallowed hard.

The captain narrowed her eyes at Thena. "Do you know why you're here, Shepard?"

"I…" Her throat was dry, relieved not at all by swallowing. She cleared her throat instead. "I… think it has to do with today's operation exercise."

"Indeed. Commander Harris placed you in charge of that exercise, did he not?"

"Yes, ma'am," she said with a single nod.

"I understand there was an incident?" she asked lightly, but Thena knew perfectly well she'd heard all from Commander Harris. She nodded again.

"Yes, ma'am." She swallowed hard and breathed in, straightening her shoulders. "The team all perished, ma'am."

LaFlamme's eyes narrowed as she leaned back in her chair, folding her hands neatly, calmly atop her desk. When she spoke, her tone was entirely conversational. "Commander Harris tells me you took full responsibility for the op's failure. Why is that?"

Thena's mouth moved silently for a moment. "Because, ma'am, my team were unprepared to face the hostiles in the exercise, and as such, were killed."

"Tell me about the team's makeup."

"I chose Cadet Caldwell as my scout and tech expert. Cadet Philips as my ranged support. Cadet Cosenza was my engineer."

"Philips is quite a hand with the Naginata, so I hear." LaFlamme picked up a datapad and peered at it. "Cosenza's got flawless shield programs and evidently favors heavy pistols, while you apparently favor the shotgun." She looked up and over the pad at Thena. "You prefer being the push behind the op, then?"

"Yes, ma'am." She smiled a little, self deprecatingly. "I've been told I don't have the subtlety for infiltrator work, and I'm not certified on the sniper rifle yet."

"No touch for tech?"

"The less said about my tech skills, ma'am, the better."

LaFlamme allowed herself a soft chuckle at that. "You said you're not certified on the sniper rifle _yet," _she said, playing over the word for a second or two. "So you plan to become certified on ranged weapons?"

She scrubbed her damp palms against her thighs once before resettling them at her knees. "With respect, ma'am, I would like to become proficient on all weaponry."

"No matter what you lay hands on in a crisis," LaFlamme said musingly, "you want to be able to shoot it?" Thena nodded, and the captain looked suddenly thoughtful. "So you had a talented scout at your front, and a talented sniper and engineer at your back. What happened?"

"I don't know, ma'am," she replied honestly. "I made the best judgment I could based on Cadet Caldwell's report. We regrouped; I told Caldwell to take point, Cosenza to stay with me, and Philips to watch our six." She gripped her hands together, so tightly the knuckles went white. "Everything went wrong at once. There was a hostile Caldwell had overlooked, and as we began to exchange fire, my gun jammed. Caldwell went down immediately. I was hit soon after that. Cosenza followed—a pistol isn't going to stand up against five hostiles—and Philips was the last, though he did manage to take out three of them."

"So this happened… because you got an incomplete scouting report?"

With another nod, Thena added, "And my weapon jammed, ma'am."

"We're going to revisit that in a moment, Cadet Shepard. You took responsibility for Caldwell's lapse."

Thena's brows knit together in a frown. "With respect ma'am, I don't understand where this line of questioning is going. I took responsibility for the op, because it was my op. It went badly. Perhaps I could have urged Caldwell to take a closer look, or have Philips use his vantage point to mark any hostiles Caldwell was unable to see. In any case, the group was compromised from the start."

"Did you check your weapon prior to the op?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"No problems with the mechanisms? No… paint leaks jamming up the insides?"

"None that I saw, ma'am."

Her fingers tapped a slow rhythm against the desk as her frown deepened, growing shrewd. "So you're willing to chalk this up to a stroke of bad luck?"

As far as explanations went, _bad luck _appeased Thena about as much as flying pigs or solar flares. Still, she smoothed out her scowl before it showed too much and said, "I'm not happy about it, but… I hope I can learn from the incident."

Several beats of silence passed. "Cadet Caldwell's omni-tool was discovered to have been in possession of several contraband programs. Commander Harris discovered that the weapon you had been using during the op had been similarly compromised. Cadet Philips witnessed your scout intentionally overlook one hostile, and Cadet Cosenza noted a strange surge in her shield program just before your weapon failed to fire. As such, Caldwell has been removed from the Alliance Academy and will be returned to her home country on the first transport out tomorrow morning."

Thena stared, taking in all of it. Caldwell had been… kicked out? For intentionally blowing the op? "I'm… I'm sorry, ma'am?"

"Commander Harris is under the impression—and I share that impression—that if you have any fault in this op, Cadet, it is that you placed precisely as much trust in your team as you ought to have. However, it is far more difficult to account for… unscrupulous factors. Noble though it may be for you to accept blame for a failed op, you do yourself a disservice." She raised a finger, pointing at Thena and shaking it slowly. "Examine _every angle_, young woman, before accepting punishment for someone else's sabotage attempt."

"What do you recommend, ma'am?"

"Better communication with your team, for one. Philips and Cosenza both knew something was wrong, but for some reason didn't speak up—partially their fault, partially yours. Find out why your team wasn't communicating properly, Cadet; it's your job to figure out why that is and to make sure it doesn't happen again."

Thena took in the captain's words and turned them over in her head, replaying—in particular—her conversation with Philips before the op. He'd seen something and was hesitant to mention it. She told this to Captain LaFlamme, who nodded sagely.

"You're all young," she pointed out. "You're not expected to have all the answers yet. Hell, you're never going to have _all_ the answers. From what I've read, Cadet Philips didn't _believe_ what he was seeing. Like you, he trusted in Cadet Caldwell to do her job. He didn't wish to cast doubt on a team member."

"But in the field," Thena said quietly, "casting doubt could've saved our lives." LaFlamme leaned back in her chair and nodded again.

"Your team needs to trust you. You need to _get them_ to trust you—I'm not talking about following you into an op, or even into the field. They need to trust you enough to _talk to you. _To _tell you_ when they've got a bad feeling, when they think something stinks. They've got to trust that you won't shut them down out of hand, that you'll follow up their doubt and _you'll_ make the right call. And more than that," she said, leaning forward now, bracing her forearms against the desk and pinning Thena with the sharp clarity of those hazel eyes, "you've got to _earn it._ Not a whole lot of people give that kind of trust freely, and even once you've got it, it's still the easiest thing to lose."

"So," Thena began slowly, "when I thought Philips might've seen something… I should've somehow… gotten him to tell me, even if it meant casting doubt on the team."

"Exactly. As op leader, it's your job to decide what's genuinely detrimental to the team—and the mission—and what's just… white noise you can work through. So how _would_ you have responded if Cadet Phililps had confided his doubts in Caldwell's integrity?"

"Assuming that I couldn't have stopped the exercise?"

"You'd have quit?" LaFlamme asked, forehead creasing in surprise.

"With respect, ma'am, if we were out in the field, I would've made a personnel change. I… don't have that freedom in a team exercise." The longer Thena thought about it, the deeper her frown became. "In retrospect, I would've requested an equipment change for Cadet Caldwell, and I would've asked Philips to corroborate the number of hostiles hidden in the zone, if he could." She thought harder. "Two snipers at different vantage points might preclude the need for a scout altogether in some instances. Two team members up high, two on the ground."

"But you won't always get a team of four—don't forget that, either," LaFlamme reminded her. "In any case, you're thinking through the problem and around it, and that's not a bad place to start." She nodded, then lifted a hand as if to dismiss Thena, then she looked thoughtful and glanced down at Thena's file, full to overflowing with test scores, academic records, and psych evals. "I see you were enrolled in the AE2 program," she said, frowning at one sheaf of papers. "On the recommendation of Lieutenant-Commander Anderson."

"That's correct, ma'am."

"Your marks weren't bad, either," she murmured, flipping through page after page before trading the hard copies out for a datapad. "Drop-out rate for that program is high. How'd you manage?"

Thena shrugged. "I just… did it, ma'am. I liked the idea of passing better than I liked the alternative."

LaFlamme let out a long, thoughtful hum. "Were you aware, Cadet, that Commander Harris has submitted your name for consideration in the officer training program for the next academic year?"

Thena stared, then blinked _hard, _struggling to process what LaFlamme had told her. Her? Officer training? _Her?_ Sure, Harris had put her in charge of a few exercises—none of which had gone so abysmally as today's. If anything, she'd have thought today's performance would've ruled her out as an officer candidate forever after. "I'm… sorry, ma'am? Could you… could you repeat that?"

LaFlamme's hazel eyes were like a _laser_ trained on Thena as the captain peered over the datapad at her and said, more slowly this time, "Commander Harris has suggested to me you'd be a valuable asset to our officer training program."

"But the exercise went _horribly_," she blurted. "Completely pear-shaped! It _sucked!_" It took a moment before she added, belatedly, her cheeks burning hot with embarrassment, "…Uh. With respect. Ma'am. I… um. Apologize for my outburst. Ma'am."

"Apology accepted, Cadet." LaFlamme coughed, and Thena suspected she hid a smile as she did. "Even so. Your team went to bat for you. And there was nothing wrong with your plan, nothing wrong with your strategy—what went wrong with the op was something no one could have possibly foreseen. Even the most seasoned veteran isn't necessarily going to spot when he's about to be betrayed. We can teach a lot of things, but we can't force soldiers to put their faith in someone. Your test scores and evals fulfill the first level of qualifications, and your academic record does the rest. Harris thinks you'd be a fine addition, and I can't see anything in your record that contradicts him. Your instructors all agree you're a hard worker and quick to learn."

It wasn't long afterward that Thena found herself dismissed from Captain LaFlamme's office. She was still damp from her walk over, and now rain poured down in sheets beyond the windows. It was a longer walk back if she tried to stay dry, sprinting from building to building, overhang to overhang, and _sprinting_ didn't quite appeal to her just yet. Still, she hurried—through breezeways and under wide-hanging roofs, cutting through buildings when she could, all the while turning over everything Captain LaFlamme had told her. The truth of it was Thena didn't know which was more shocking—that Caldwell had blown the op on purpose (and _why_? To make her look bad? Where the hell was the point in that?) or that Commander Harris wanted her to train as an officer.

"Hey, Shep, wait up!"

She turned to find Ray Philips hurrying down the covered walkway to her, and doing a lousy job of staying dry; little gusts of wind carried rain first one way, then the other, smattering his sleeves with droplets. Renata was right, he _was_ built like an ox, and he sure didn't fit her idea of a sniper. Truth be told, he looked more like a hockey player than anything. And yet he managed to find—and fit into—some of the most impossible crawlspaces and vantage points, and had a reputation for clean and impossible shots.

"Hey," she greeted, once he'd caught up. "Cripes," she said, looking up at him, "you're getting soaked, Ray."

Philips shrugged, bringing a hand up to shove back the auburn hair plastered to his forehead. "Listen," he said, and for a moment the same uncertainty she'd glimpsed earlier showed up on his face before he seemed to make a conscious effort to push it away. "I heard about Caldwell."

"The way I hear it," she replied, "you told Harris about Caldwell."

He frowned and they continued down the walkway. Rain and wind buffeted Thena on one side as they walked, her right leg and arm hit with pinpricks of cold water. It took a few seconds for Philips to speak up again.

"I didn't know what I saw—no. No, that isn't it. I didn't want to _believe_ what I thought I saw. Figured I had to be wrong. I didn't want—I thought if I said something about Caldwell, it would've compromised the exercise." He scowled. "Turns out the exercise got screwed anyway. I… I should've said something."

She thought about what to say to that. Granted, Thena _agreed_ with him, but simply agreeing didn't feel particularly helpful. "Thanks," she said finally. "I… you're not wrong—you should've spoken up. I think I get why you didn't, though. Still… I can only make a decision on the information I'm given. Anyone holds back, I might be missing something important."

"Don't I know it," he replied, jamming his hands in his pockets. "I feel like a dumbass."

Thena grinned up at him. "Nah. Not a dumbass. Just careful. Besides, isn't that some hallmark of sniperdom or something?"

"Somethin' like that. I was just careful in the wrong direction this time."

"And next time?"

"Next time I think one of our team member's secretly planning to get us all failing grades?" Philips laughed and clapped Thena on the shoulder hard enough to make her stumble. He barely noticed; he was already ambling off to the mess hall. "You get to make that call," Philips called back over his shoulder, "I don't need the stress."


	9. I is for Insight

I is for Insight

"Oh, come off it, Philips," Thena said, gesturing at him with a french fry. "The First Contact War was a monumental fuck up of the first degree."

The mess hall was a chaos of noise around them, cadets settling in for lunch even as some hurried off to class, PT, or training ops. The table was technically only big enough for two, but she, Renata Stevens, and Ray Philips were crowded around the small corner table, datapads and food trays covering every inch of usable surface. The conversation had started out with the three of them drilling each other on an upcoming exam, but had been well and truly derailed early on.

Philips leaned forward, crossing his forearms on the table. "And I'm not saying it _wasn't._"

"We all know war sucks," she said flatly. "So a war you didn't expect to start sucks even worse. All _I'm_ saying is maybe we should've been a little more careful."

"Ounce of prevention, pound of cure, Philips," Renata Stevens intoned.

Thena lifted her hand in a sweeping gesture at Renata. "_Thank_ you, Steve."

"Share a room with you as long as I have, I'm bound to pick up something," Renata replied, taking a long drink of water.

But Philips would not be deterred. He was relentless as hell, even when he was hip deep in an argument—hell, _especially_ when he was hip deep in an argument, no matter which _side_ of the debate he found himself on. It unnerved Thena just how much she _liked_ that.

"There was no way we could have _known_ we were breaking any laws."

"No, we assumed we weren't." Thena rolled her eyes, going on to say, "_Assumed_—hell, I think half the problem was that humanity _assumed_ we were alone in our little corner of the universe to begin with." Thena plucked up a french-fry and pointed it at Philips. "Think about the old-world explorers who crossed oceans to travel from one continent to the other and just _assumed_ there wouldn't be other people there. Because that's what their intel told them."

"Didn't end well for them," Renata said, stealing one of Thena's fries. She looked up in time to catch Thena's glare and shrugged. "What? I don't want them getting cold. Cuisine this fine deserves to be eaten, not gestured with." She stole another fry.

"Okay, yeah," Thena relented, turning her attention back to Philips. "Like she said, it didn't end well for them." She dragged the fry through ketchup and popped it in her mouth. "Meaning they usually _died horribly. _Because they fucking _assumed_. Thousands of years of exploratory experience and we can't learn one simple lesson?"

"People can only make decisions based on the information they've been given," Philips argued, and damn if he wasn't like a dog with a bone over this. They both agreed that the First Contact War had been an avoidable conflict, but their opinions on _how_ the conflict might've been avoided couldn't have been any more different.

"Fair enough," Thena replied, "but don't tell me that the 'best information' they had meant it was an acceptable strategy to run pell-mell through space, turning on every mass relay we could find, like a kid hyped up on sugar running through the house switching the lights off and on."

"Thanks, Theen," Renata said with a smirk. "I'm now picturing Jon Grissom running with scissors."

With ease born of practice, Thena ignored Renata. "Philips, all I'm saying is that all species have history, and there's none of us making _new mistakes._ We just get too full of ourselves, and _think_ they're new mistakes. The situations aren't new, they're just bigger, with shinier tech, but we've all been making the same screw ups since time began. Sometimes war is unavoidable, and sometimes you stumble into it ass-first. And over the years humanity's done more than it's fair share of stumbling. The First Contact War was a fuck up of assumptions and ignorance on both sides."

Philips drained his own water and leaned back in his chair, pushing a hand through his hair. "It could have been avoided, Shep. That's all I'm saying."

"And I'm agreeing with you. But I can't help but notice that whenever someone says, 'it could've been avoided,' what they usually mean 'the turians should've negotiated.'"

"Are you saying they shouldn't have been expected to?" he challenged, grey eyes flashing.

Steadfastly ignoring both Philips' grey eyes _and_ they way they turned steely when he leaned forward like that—_damn_—Thena reached down to discover her french fries were gone, leaving her nothing more to gesture with. "I'm _saying_ that humanity and turian societies are fundamentally different, and both sides were unaware of their respective differences, acting on instinct, and those fundamental societal differences—"

"Are going to make us late for Callahan's Strategy and Policy class," Renata broke in, sliding her datapad away and pushing back from the table. "C'mon, Theen," she said, shouldering her bag. "Show Nebraska a little mercy, why don't you? Or the next training op you run together, your sniper's gonna let you bite it."

"You should know me better than that, Stevens," Philips groused, pushing away from the table. "Shep would have my ass if I left her out to twist in the wind." And with that, he gave them both a wave and ambled out of the mess hall.

Once he was gone, Renata elbowed Thena and gave her a slantwise look, grinning. "Boy's got it bad."

"And you're delusional," Thena snorted. "Maybe more than usual. Come on."

They made their way out of the mess hall, carefully navigating tables and chairs, to say nothing of other cadets, and, thankfully, Renata didn't say anything more about it. Until they were outside, at least.

"I have it on good authority," she told Thena, as the two of them walked briskly across the campus, "Nebraska's got two tickets to a hockey game Friday night."

"Yeah?" she replied, her pace never slowing.

"And I've _heard_ he's gonna ask you if you want to go with him."

Thena stopped short, eyes going wide as her heart thumped hard in her chest and enough adrenaline seeped into her veins to make her hands tingle. "And just where did you _hear_ any of this?"

Renata took a few more steps before realizing Thena wasn't behind her. She slowed and turned, offering a shrug. "So, maybe it's _possible_ I could've been the one to tell him you like hockey. Because it's possible he could've _asked_."

"You're joking," she said, but could not quite stop the blush creeping up to warm her cheeks.

"No," Renata replied, tilting her head. "I tend to save the jokes for when they actually have punchlines, and what is your problem with this? Nebraska's a nice guy. And don't think I haven't noticed you mooning."

"I do not _moon,_" she mumbled, feeling her face burn.

"Totally mooning. Although I admit you do it with class and subtlety—oh, and blushing. Totally with the blushing, which is _adorable,_ let me just say. But it's still mooning. Funny, I didn't think you were the type who went for redheads."

"It's auburn," Thena corrected her automatically. Then she let out a vivid swear and started up a stairway, taking the steps two at a time. To her chagrin, Renata had no difficulty maintaining that kind of pace.

"But you aren't mooning. Right. Anyway, what's the harm? Either way, you get to see a hockey game with someone whose company you don't hate. I'm failing to see the problem here."

How could she explain the problem without, well, _explaining_ the problem? "It's been a while since I've been… out. With someone. Like that."

"So it's been a while since you've been out with a guy. Big deal."

"Years, Steve," she said as they reached the auditorium. "Years since I've been on any sort of _date._"

"How many years?" Renata asked as the door opened.

Thena shrugged. She was a few months from twenty now, which meant upwards of four years, which didn't seem like a huge span of time under ordinary circumstances. Under these circumstances, however… "Enough," she answered, slinking into a seat and pulling free her datapad. From the corner of her eye, she saw that Renata was far from satisfied, but Callahan was not a forgiving instructor, and her Strategy and Policies seminar was easily one of the most challenging in Thena's schedule this term. Whatever Renata wanted to know would have to wait.

Much to Thena's relief, Renata dropped the subject. It remained dropped as they parted ways while Renata went to her class on comparative multi-species politics, and Thena to a class on the history of unconventional warfare, and did not rise again through PT and training ops exercises, where she saw Philips, who did not behave in the least little bit like he had anything to discuss with her beyond the op—and they weren't even on the same squad, which Thena could not help but view as a blessing.

It wasn't until Thena had returned to the barracks to shower and change before dinner that Renata broached the subject again. Moving far too damned quietly, her reflection appeared behind Thena as she stood in front of the mirror, binding her hair back into a long braid.

"How _many_ years, Theen?"

Biting back a curse and a groan, Thena shook her head, her fingers deftly twining the long segments of hair. "Since I was, like. Sixteen. Maybe before then."

"So?"

"I don't have the first idea how to… to _talk_ to someone like Philips, Steve." She braided a few moments longer, then waved a hand. "I don't mean— I can _talk_ to him, sure. But… I don't— I don't know. The one on one thing. The… _conversation_ thing."

"Just how much talking are you expecting to do at a _hockey game_?" Renata asked folding her arms. "I've _seen_ you when the Canucks play. There is no conversation. Yelling. Swearing. Throwing things. But conversation? Not so much." The tipped her head to the side, twining her red ponytail around one finger. "Besides, why do you think I told Nebraska you like hockey? It'll be an easy date. Just… show up and scream your bloody lungs out for whoever the hell you want to win. Chrissakes, Thena, you're going to be _fine._ And even if you _do_ have to talk to him? It's just conversation," her roommate said slowly, enunciating every syllable. "It's what people do. They talk. _Talk_ to him. You talk to him every day anyway, right?"

Thena grimaced. "Yeah, about differing guerrilla tactics and to what effect they were used at Shanxi, or the best way to assemble and disassemble the Naginata."

Renata smirked. "And now I'm wondering why I didn't just suggest he take you down to the shooting range."

The grimace didn't budge. "Right, because we don't already do that _every damn day._"

"I don't know what to tell you, Theen," Renata said on a sigh. "Just… be you. I like you. Hell, Barker likes you, and Barker doesn't like _anyone. _Just… talk. And hell, Theen, I _know_ you can talk. Ask him about Nebraska. Tell him about where you grew up."

Thena's stomach lurched, and she winced as she tugged too hard at a section of hair, swearing under her breath at the sharp pull against against her scalp. Behind her, Renata leaned against the white tile wall and pursed her lips, frowning at Thena in the mirror. The frown, however, lasted longer than Thena might've expected, and without any additional commentary.

"What's wrong?"

Renata didn't reply right away. Instead, she folded her arms, fingertips gripping either elbow, and watched Thena wrangle her hair back into a plait, which she then pinned to her scalp. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Fact check your next essay for Tactics?" she asked lightly. In the mirror, Renata's expression didn't change.

"Well. That, yeah. But—what's this really about? You never… Thena, just now, when I told you to talk to Philips about where you grew up, I swear to god, you went whiter than I ever saw you." She paused. "Why?"

Thena turned around, bracing the small of her back against the cold countertop, letting it bite almost painfully into the curve of her spine. "So what do you want to know?"

"In the almost-two years I've known you, you've never once mentioned your… your family or your home or…" she gestured, helplessly. "Why?"

Thena looked down at her hands. She'd picked the skin away from the side of her thumbnail, almost to the point it had started bleeding. Frowning, she smoothed the pad of her index finger over the ragged patch of raw skin. "I grew up on Mindoir," she said quietly.

Renata blinked once. "You grew up on…" the words trailed off into silence, and that silence made Thena's stomach churn. "Oh. _Oh._"

"So, yeah," she said, ignoring that second _Oh_ and everything it didn't say. "I know a little about farms. And I had… I had brothers and my mother was a teacher and my dad… my dad was a horticultural engineer. He, uh. He…if there were plants or crops that wouldn't grow, he… he hybridized them, crossed them with indigenous species." She forced her eyes up. "But I—I can't tell _him_ that, Steve."

"Why the hell not?" she asked, suddenly indignant.

"I don't want people to… to be weird about it." More to the point, she didn't want to talk about or have to explain the two years that followed, either. "I don't want… _sympathy._ I just… I don't want anyone treating me different because of what happened."

"Am I being weird about it? Right now," she said. "You told me just now. Am I being weird?"

"No, but you're _you._" And with a weak smile, Thena shrugged one shoulder. "Weird's an anticipated part of the equation when I'm dealing with you."

"Yeah," she said with a snort, "I'm me. And it's me that's telling you you're being stupid about this. No one's saying you've gotta bare your heart or anything, but newsflash, Theen. We're your _friends._ We give a shit about you. And if Ray Philips is an asshole, or he gets _weird_ over anything, or gives you creepy sympathy that pisses you off, or—I don't know—treats you like a leper, believe it when I tell you I will straighten his corn-fed ass right the hell out." She paused. "But I don't think he will."

###

The night was clear as the thick crowd of fans, disappointed and elated alike, streamed out of the arena, some to private parking garages, others to waiting skycars, and still others to public shuttles and rapid transport. The shuttle was crowded beyond comprehension, but still the quickest means of transport between the arena and the Academy campus.

"Stevens said you liked hockey," remarked Philips—no, Ray. _Ray_, she reminded herself; calling him _Philips_ on a date was too weird. Granted, it hadn't stopped her from tripping over what to call him a few times. It would've been embarrassing if he hadn't been wrestling with the same problem. "She didn't say you lived, breathed, and _bled _it."

Shrugging and sending him a crooked grin, Thena replied, "She probably didn't want to scare you."

He snorted at that and shook his head. "Fat chance of that. You've gotta see my family get together over Cornhusker games. Trust me, you'd fit right in."

"Cornhuskers— that's the college team, right?" she asked, fighting down the warmth that had surged up in her chest at _you'd fit right in._

"Yeah. We're more about football than hockey—"

"No one's perfect," she murmured, sliding the words in as she nudged him with her elbow.

"Oh, ha _ha_," he replied, nudging her back. "It's still a big deal, though."

They fell into step with each other, neither one caring very much whether they caught the shuttle or had to wait for the next one, when Ray asked, "Do you watch football at all?"

"Not really. A lot of the college games didn't broadcast to the colony." At his curious look, Thena bit her bottom lip, her hesitation lasting barely a second before she explained, "I'm… from Mindoir. We, uh… we got some sports broadcasts, but the schedule for it was… kind of erratic."

"You're from…" He stopped and blinked. Then he blinked again. "Oh. Shit. I didn't realize…"

"It's… it's—don't worry about it. I don't… there's a reason I don't bring it up. I don't like talking about it."

"No, I don't blame you." He grimaced, then chanced what looked a great deal like a contrite look at her. "Did I completely just step in it?"

"I… think you'll survive."

###

When Thena opened the door to the barracks, it was to find Renata sitting on the bottom bunk—her bunk—the gentle glow of a datapad lighting the contours of her face.

"You're late," she said, without looking up.

"Missed the first shuttle," Thena replied, shrugging out of her coat and draping it over a chair. "And are you actually _waiting up for me_?"

"You really think I was going to miss hearing all about this?" Renata's grin was sudden and broad, and she set the datapad aside, drawing her legs up and patting the mattress. "Go on. Sit. Tell me _everything._"

"You're inviting me to sit on _my own bed,_" Thena observed, but sat, pulling her legs up so she was sitting cross-legged. "And I suppose the only way to get my own bed _back_ is by sating your unhealthy desire for juicy gossip?"

Renata's grin widened. "Bingo. Who won?"

This time it was Thena's turn to grin. "Canucks."

"Thank god," Renata said, tipping her head back. "I know how you can get after they lose, and I didn't want to subject anyone to _that. _Okay, so did your… _jubilant_ screaming and swearing scare him off?"

"He at no point ran for his life or went in search of higher ground, so I'm pretty sure I didn't terrify him."

Renata's next question was couched in humor and softened by the smile at her lips. "And did you guys talk at all, or was it all frothing at the mouth and shouted obscenities at the refs?" But Thena knew what she was really asking.

"There was talking." There'd been quite a bit of talking, as it happened. The wait between shuttles had not been a _short_ one.

"And?"

And it had been good. Really good. Good enough that there was talk of other places they could go and other things they could do. Talking, as it turned out, had not been one of Thena's shortcomings, for all her nerves and trepidation.

"And," Thena finally drawled out, "I was being kind of dumb and maybe a little paranoid and yes, Steve, _you were right_. Is that what you were waiting to hear?"

"It'll do. And you _know _saying 'you were right' is always a good touch, Theen."

"Hell, Steve, why else do you think I said it?"


	10. J is for Jersey

J is for Jersey

"Shepard," Barker drawled, "delivery for you."

Thena looked up from where she sat, curled up on her bunk, reading—the material was dry, and her bed warm, and that paired with the rain pattering against the window, she'd been fighting the urge to doze off for the better part of an hour now. The distraction was as welcome as it was unexpected, and she pushed to her feet and joined her roommate at the door to find a rain-damp man in Alliance regs pushing a dolly loaded with a single small crate.

She looked from the box to the man delivering it, and she supposed her confusion was evident, because he gave her a crisp nod and said, "Package for you, miss." He handed her a datapad and, more incongruously, a clipboard with a pen and several hard-copy forms.

"Yeah, I… see that. Who's it from?" she asked, taking the datapad first. One thumbprint and electronic signature later, she had the clipboard and was scrawling her name in four different spots on five different forms. She hadn't thought anyone _used_ hard copies any more, but apparently the Alliance was… thorough. And possibly just as bloody-minded as everyone said. Hell, maybe the rumors about every form being submitted in triplicate weren't just _rumors._

The look Barker gave her was a dry one. "Gonna go out on a limb and guess someone in the Alliance."

"Alliance Colonization, Department of Recovery," the man supplied, and if he saw the color drain from Thena's face—she _felt_ it surely enough—he didn't acknowledge it. Instead, he rolled the crate into the room, sliding the box from the dolly when Thena indicated which bunk was hers and, nodding at both Barker and Thena, trundled the dolly out the door and down the corridor.

The door fell shut, and the room suddenly felt too small.

The crate was large and oblong, about three feet long, two feet wide, and another two feet deep. Sure enough, it was emblazoned with a label, bearing her name, her physical address, and a return address: _Alliance Colonization Services, Dept. of Recovery._

Recovery.

Colonization services.

_Recovery._

She barely registered Barker standing next to her, looking down at the box. She'd been Thena's roommate just as long as Renata had been, and she'd been abrasive as fuck-all for just as long as that. Barker was good people, down deep. Way, way down deep. The surface was, well… abrasive. And sometimes it took a while to dig far enough that you reached the good parts.

"Well? Are you going to _open_ it?"

Abrasive _and_ tactless.

"Later," Thena answered. Later, when everyone else was down in the dining hall or researching in the library. Later, when she could be alone, and face whatever the hell the Alliance had _recovered_ without having to explain, without—

The door swung open as Renata and McTavish entered in a chaos of rain-soaked jackets and wet boots squeaking against damp floors. Renata swung her rucksack onto the bunk above Thena's.

"Should've come to the library with us," she said, gripping the upper bunk's frame and swinging down to sit on Thena's bunk with a bounce.

"Get a lot done?" she asked, barely pulling her attention from the crate.

"_Nothing,_" she replied, squeezing the water from her hair.

"She's lying," McTavish said, hanging up her coat. "Cripes, Steve—you're getting water _everywhere._"

Renata waved away McTavish's complaints. "Almost nothing. You should've come. It was fun, considering it was— hey," she said, her attention swerving as she slid to the foot of Thena's bed, peering down. "…What's that?"

"Just came for Shepard," Barker replied with a shrug as she sat down and began pulling on her boots, before adding, somewhat accusatorially, "She's not opening it."

Something about the note in Barker's tone set Thena's teeth on edge. _It's none of your fucking business,_ she wanted to say. But she didn't say that. She didn't say any of the things she _wanted_ to say. Instead, she breathed slowly and bit down on the inside of her cheek until pain pushed back the urge to voice something regrettable. _Don't piss where you sleep,_ Tyrrana would've told her. _Unless, of course, you're a volus and have an internal filtration unit in your suit. Then piss wherever you want._

Thena missed Tyrrana so completely, so _fiercely _just then—the ache was sharp enough to make moisture prickle at her eyes.

"Why not?" Renata asked, hanging further over the foot of Thena's bunk. "Is it…" The words died in her friend's throat. She'd seen the return label. More than that, she knew what it meant. What it had to mean.

"It's nothing," Thena managed, but her chest felt too tight and her voice sounded funny to her own ears. _It's nothing_ sounded more like _it's everything._

"Where're you going, Barks?" Renata asked, casting a glance to Barker.

"For the hundredth goddamn time, don't call me that, Stevens," the other girl snapped, shrugging into her coat. "I'm going to the labs." _Not that it's any of your business,_ her tone seemed to say.

When the door slammed behind Barker, McTavish let out a low whistle. "You know, it's no wonder she's in engineering."

"Why's that?" Thena asked dully, looking away from the crate.

McTavish hoisted herself up to her own bunk. "No need at all for anything resembling social skills." She settled back with a stack of datapads before setting a personal playlist on her omni-tool and snapping a pair of tiny earpieces in place. All Thena could hear was a soft, tinny whisper of music from McTavish's audio and the sound of rain drumming against the window.

"You okay?" Renata asked, keeping her voice low.

"Yeah. No. I-I don't…" She raked a hand through her hair and knelt on the floor. "Shit," she breathed, because she didn't know what else to say. She didn't know what else she _could_ say. Her heart still pounded, and now her head ached, and all witty repartee was gone. "I didn't— I didn't think…"

Her friend sent the crate a dark look. "Took 'em long enough."

"I was on my own for a while," she reminded Renata, somehow feeling… resigned to it now. "They didn't know where to find me." Reaching out one hesitant hand, her fingertips brushed the top of the crate. "I'm… I'm back in the system now."

"You know, if you want to be alone, I can come up with something to get McTavish out of here. It's no big deal. You want privacy, we can make that happen."

"Steve," Thena said on an exhale. "It's fine. I'm fine."

Renata's look was hard, her brown eyes sharp. "I call bullshit on that."

Pressing the pads of her fingertips against her eyes, Thena muttered, "I'm as fine as I can be right now. Better?"

"Marginally."

With another sidelong glance up at McTavish, clearly lost in whatever she was reading, Thena crouched down and picked at the packing tape, finding one end and working her thumb underneath it until she pulled the whole strip away in one long, brown curlicue. Slowly, methodically, and refusing Renata's offer of a jackknife, Thena pulled the packing tape free and carefully pried open the crate's lid. A smooth foam packing insert protected the box's contents, but even with the foam insert in place, Thena could still smell the smoke. At that point she wasn't even completely sure she was actually smelling it, or if her brain was supplying too-vivid memories for the moment—the smell of burning prefab and crops mingled with the sharp, pungent stink of electronics overheating and bursting. The smell of burning bodies. Hair, clothes, everything _burning._

She sucked in a breath and held it. Counted to ten.

Then she pulled the piece of foam free.

The crate's contents were hardly items of note, for all they were nestled into the box, protected by layers of packing foam. Three water-damaged books, blackened by soot—one of them her mother's copy of _Odysseus, _the other a book of French poetry, and the third a book of Grimm's tales in the original German_._ One antique, regulation wooden baseball bat. Several more items wrapped in paper, listed on an inventory sheet simply as "miscellaneous." The books and bat she could _see,_ but the other items were shrouded, which meant she had to touch them, unwrap them, discover what had been found in the remains of her family's home.

"Holy shit," Renata breathed, looking at the bat. "They _recovered_ that?"

"Wooden bat's not going to be any interest to someone picking over a colony for obvious valuables," she explained. "No matter how much of an antique it is."

"And yet I'm pretty sure my grampa would shank a guy for that bat."

Thena ran her hand over it, wondering where it had been recovered. Hadn't she had it in her hands as she'd run through the cornfield? Or had she dropped it before then, after the batarian shot Jason, after—

_Troy, pulling her off the dead batarian, his head misshapen and bloody, clumps of brain matter clinging, sliding down the wood grain, falling, dripping to the floor._

…After.

"At least they cleaned it," she murmured under her breath, pulling the bat free from the box and setting it reverently on her bunk. The first of the wrapped packages was flat and wide. Not terribly heavy. Swallowing hard, she pulled the paper away, sheet after sheet. It almost put her in mind of Christmas mornings, torn paper and bows tossed and strewn about the family room, but Thena wasn't tearing, wasn't rushing—she wasn't even sure she wanted to know what it was at all. When the last sheet of soft grey paper came away, the first thing she saw was her own face. Younger—fifteen, maybe. Maybe fourteen. So very much younger, and smiling, and hoisted upon someone's shoulders. Jason's shoulders, she realized. She couldn't remember the occasion, exactly. A birthday, maybe, or some other holiday. It could even have been the last day of school or the first day of a vacation. Something significant enough to make three teenagers smile—genuine smiles, Thena's arms hooked around Jason's neck, Troy leaning against Jason, his pose nothing but over-the-top cockiness—for a silly family photo. Lemon trees filled the background, lush green boughs peppered with vibrant yellow fruit.

The picture itself was damaged—heat and water and exposure left it streaked and warped; the frame was blackened with streaks of soot or dirt, and the glass in the frame long had long since been discarded—and, working very, very carefully, Thena freed the picture from its frame, tossing the latter aside.

"You okay, Theen?" Renata asked quietly. She was holding a hand out, as if unsure whether any comfort would be welcomed. In truth, Thena wasn't sure she would've welcomed it. Everything felt too raw, too scraped over and cut open, and at this point she wasn't even sure she wanted to see what else was in the box.

"Not really," Thena answered dully. Her heart was pounding, her stomach wrenching, limbs flooding and tingling with adrenaline that had nowhere to go, no outlet to act on. She'd just been prolonging this, hadn't she — running and hiding and avoiding _this_ for all that time. And here it was, caught up with her at last, forcing her to look at the past, touch it, smell it, _accept it_ and move on.

A watch, Jason's, with its thick, utilitarian band and rugged—but heavily scratched—face. A "survival watch," he'd bragged, and she and Troy had rolled their eyes as Jason listed all the ways in which his watch was superior to an omni-tool. And now, as Thena looked at its scratched face, she caught herself trying not to think too hard about the irony of that. A _survival_ watch. The time it kept was Mindoir's, but it was still running, still keeping, as far as Thena could tell, perfect time. Next she unwrapped an ugly, chipped figurine—a cartoony dog wearing sunglasses and gaudy swim trunks that was clearly a memento from _somewhere_, but Thena was damned if she could remember where or when. She was only certain it had been Troy's, because it was silly and ugly, and Troy had _always loved_ the silliest, ugliest, kitschiest things.

Beneath that was a heavy envelope filled with random pieces of flotsam and jetsam that Thena couldn't identify all at once, and in a moment everything wavered, and _damn it,_ she'd promised herself she wouldn't cry, wouldn't start, _wouldn't cry_, but there were _things_ here, things she knew, things she recognized, things she'd touched and laughed after, and it _wasn't right_. Wasn't _fair._ And after so many years keeping a very strict mental distance where her family was concerned, thinking about them while never quite letting herself get lost and subsumed by memory and emotion, here it was. _Here._ In her hands, mocking her distance, _daring_ her not to think about them now, when she held all that remained of them in a _two-by-three foot box._

She folded the lid on the envelope closed—_too much to process; too much, too much_—and picked up the bottommost parcel. It was soft and flexible, and the paper began falling away almost as soon as she picked it up.

The material was dark, darker than it ought to have been, and stiff with age and neglect and exposure; it was frayed and peppered with holes, as if rodents had chewed on it in the intervening years. But there was no doubt of what it was. Not when she'd pulled the paper away and she held it up. Glaring at her under the harsh lights was _Vancouver_ emblazoned in white—dingy grey, now—and one very familiar whale breaking out of a similarly familiar stylized C. A Canucks jersey.

No, she realized, her breath stopping, hands clenching as she turned it over and saw, against all comprehension, _Shepard_ stitched into the back. Hers. _Her_ Canucks jersey. Her birthday. The game they'd gone to. The trip to Earth. The last thing they'd done as a family before—

_"Every fan needs one," Dad said, tossing her the piece of cloth, blue and white and green blurring in the air as he threw it, trading a grin with Mom when she caught it easily._

_Mom nudged her as she held it up to herself. "Look at the back, sweetheart."_

_"Sweet," Troy breathed gazing enviously over the birthday gift. "When do I get to borrow it?"_

_"Fifth of never," she replied, twirling the jersey into a rope up and snapping it at him with it before pulling it over her head. "What do you think?" she asked with a twirl._

_"Gotta say," Jason said, already wearing his jersey and pulling a cap down onto his head, "it matches your scar."_

Before _everything._

Renata's voice, worry making it strained and thin, her hand on Thena's arm. "Hey, Theen? Thena? _Thena._"

"I'm okay," she answered automatically, wondering just how long her friend had been saying her name. She looked up, blinking hard, trying to see the room—the room, and not her memories. Slowly, like pieces of a larger puzzle falling and clicking into place, she became aware of the sound of rain still falling, still pounding against the windows, turning the world on the other side of the glass into a watercolor of blacks, browns, and grays. She became aware of the room, of McTavish's omni-tool and the smell of wet jackets hanging to dry. Forcing her limbs into motion, Thena folded the jersey into fourths and put it back into the box, slowly returning every other item she'd pulled out. By the time she replaced the lid on the crate, her hands were barely shaking at all.

"You are _not_ okay."

"No," she insisted, shaking her head. "I'm…" Thena brought her hands to her face, but before she could scrub away her tears, she saw how blackened her palms were, caught how strongly they smelled of smoke and age and decay, but smelled _nothing_ of home, and she could _still remember_ what home smelled like, could still remember orange blossoms and lemon trees and there were too many memories, too many images, too many thoughts and reactions and wishes and _aches_ let loose all at once in her head. She was barely aware she'd scrambled to her feet at all until she was in the washroom, scrubbing her hands with soap under scalding water, hardly conscious of her tears but for the way each choking sob tore through her throat, bouncing back at her off the cold tile.

Renata's hand rubbed across her back as Thena scrubbed relentlessly at her hands, then as she folded herself forward, resting her elbows against the counter.

"I'm okay," she insisted, though when she inhaled, everything trembled.

"No, you're not."

"I was _done_ with this," she ground out, wondering how badly it would hurt if she slammed a hand against the wall. A fist? She wanted to hit something, wanted it so desperately that her fingernails scraped against the countertop as she curled her hands into fists. "I was _done._ This part was supposed to be _over._ I'm _tired_ of this. I don't _want_ this anymore. _Fuck_ crying, I'm _tired_ of crying." Thena cringed. "And now I'm _whining._"

Then, somehow, they were sitting on the floor, backs braced against the door, keeping McTavish out, keeping Barker out, should she return. Thena couldn't quite figure out how they'd ended up down there, but Renata was patting her back, saying nothing until the storm of Thena's sobs and tears finally, finally subsided into congested sniffles and halfhearted hiccups.

"Better?" she asked. Thena shrugged, but didn't reply. "You know," she went on, as if she hadn't expected a response, "I read once that emotional tears have a different chemical from tears the body produces at any other time. Different from tears of pain, different from tears you get when someone's cutting onions—just _different._ And the reason why we cry when we're sad is because the chemicals in our brain are all out of whack, so we've gotta release that pressure and get all the levels back to normal."

Thena's expression must have been skeptical, because soon Renata's elbow was digging into her ribs. "I'm being serious, Theen."

"Ow, okay, fine," she replied, scrubbing her hands across her face. "You're being serious."

"And you know what?"

She sent Renata a curious look. "I have a feeling you're going to tell me."

"I haven't seen you cry in the, what, two—almost three?—years we've roomed together," she said quietly. And there was something else, a note of _something_ in her voice. Grief, maybe. Though Thena suspected it was less grief for her family than grief for Thena herself. "Not once."

"I'm—"

"Okay?" Renata supplied. "So you keep saying. Over and over again. You're not okay, and it's _okay_ if you're not okay. There's no statute of limitations on grieving, especially not when you've lost your whole family. You're tired of crying? Well that's too damned bad, because you're going to miss them, so _let yourself miss them._ You don't have to prove anything to the rest of us. It's okay. We already know you can kick our butts in hand to hand, and Barker still hasn't gotten it out of her craw that you got a better time than she did on speed drills." Renata smiled at Thena's watery chuckle, then patted her back. "You don't have to hold it all in, you know. Hell, you _shouldn't._ Bad things happen when you don't relieve those pressure valves, Theen." She paused, nudging again. "I bet even badass admirals cry sometimes."

"Yeah, let's ask Commander Harris that," Thena scoffed. "I'm sure sitting in a bathroom bawling's perfectly healthy."

"You doubt me?" Renata asked, pulling away and folding her arms. The look she gave Thena was an arch one as she reached up and poked an index finger against Thena's forehead. "How do you feel?"

"I feel like crap," she tossed back with a glare. "My head's pounding and my nose is stuffy," she answered, swatting Renata's hand away. But when her roommate's look darkened, Thena sighed and shook her head as all the fight drained out of her. She was tired now, and still felt… miserable, but the tense ache was gone, the wall-scratching feeling like she was lost with no hope of finding her way out. Thena felt… "A little better," she said, finally. "I think. I guess. Maybe."

"Thanks for the ringing endorsement." After a moment, Renata tipped her head back against the door and sighed. "What were they like?" she asked, hesitating over the words, over that _path_, as if the very words were loose ground that could give way just under her feet. "Your family. What were they like? Your… your dad liked baseball?"

The memories that had released themselves upon her in a torrent now surrounded Thena's mind, a series of glistening puddles. "My mom used to tell me… stories, when I was a kid. Never realized till later it was _The Odyssey_."

With a soft chuckle, Renata shook her head. "Thena, Jason, and Troy. I get it now. Cute."

"And… and my dad… made the best pancakes," she said, smiling faintly. "And he loved all Earth sports… except, maybe skyball." She smiled a little. "Called it a 'bastardized abomination of baseball.' He tried to teach us baseball and… he got _really _good at replacing windows."

"Hey, to be fair, skyball's kinda stupid," Renata relented. At Thena's querying look, she shrugged. "Then again, I like speed skating, so maybe don't look at me." Then, suddenly, Renata pushed to her feet, offering Thena a hand up. "Come on," she said, no room for argument in her tone, tugging the door open once Thena was on her feet, brushing her hands on her pants.

"Where?"

"I think we need to go out for pancakes."

Thena blinked. "You want… to _go out _for pancakes?"

"Well, I'm not _making_ them for you," Renata retorted. "And then? Then… I think I need to convince you to buy yourself a new jersey." Her voice softened a little. "Nothing against your old one, of course. Just not sure it… fits you anymore."


	11. K is for Kindred

"Wait, wait, wait. You're… going? You're going." Tyrrana stared at her brother. "You're actually _going._"

Narius looked up from the stack of datapads on his desk. "I believe I said as much, yes."

"_You're._ Going to _Earth._"

"It's hardly a pleasure cruise, Tyrrana." Narius sounded annoyed. He _looked_ annoyed. Tyrrana narrowed her eyes at him, and to his credit he let the silent glare stretch out nearly a full minute before he pushed his chair away from the desk with a frustrated exhale and rummaged around in a drawer. He flicked something flat and smooth across the desk's surface that slid and spun and nearly fell off the edge before Tyrrana plucked it up in her fingers and examined it.

"Pallin wants me there," he said. "A gesture of _good faith_. He is of the opinion that if C-Sec is going to recruit from the Alliance academy, there ought to be a… representative present."

"So, because Mister High and Mighty Executor," she said, disdain dripping from her mandibles, "doesn't want to go himself, he picked you." She tilted her head. "And what does Kalthea say?"

"What do you think she said?" he replied with a laugh. "She said she thought it was a marvelous opportunity, asked me to take plenty of pictures, and warned me to pack my own meals."

"So she isn't going with you?" she asked. Tyrrana knew precious little about Earth itself. Hell, most of what she _did_ know about it came from Thena's email messages and late-night comm calls. Sometimes she felt as if she were exploring the planet _with_ Thena, who'd spent most of her life on the Mindoir colony. Living planetside, she could tell, had taken some adjustment, particularly after two years on the Citadel. Of course, she'd had no doubt Thena would pull through, because that was the kind of stuff the kid was made of.

"I think she'd like to," he said on a sigh. "But Garrus will be home on leave that week and Solana's exhibiting her newest encryption program—"

She sunk down into the chair, passing the clearance pass back across the desk. "Spirits. When did they get so big?"

The look he gave her was a wry one, but the sadness thrumming through his subvocals told Tyrrana Narius didn't know the answer either. "Time doesn't stop when you're away," he said.

"True, but it shouldn't speed up, either." She exhaled a soft laugh, leaning forward and resting her forearms against Narius' desk. "I still remember when Garrus' fringe came in. He was so _clumsy;_ off balance and knocking into everything—and poor Solana, thank the spirits she grew into her growth spurt. I thought she was going to be be all spurs and carapace there for a while."

Narius' smile was faint, but fond. "I suspect they miss you too."

Tyrrana shifted in her chair doing, she knew, a poor job of hiding her grimace. "Yes, let's all get together next time they're on the station. We'll have lunch. Won't be awkward at all, would it?"

He shot her a look that was all too easy to read, and even if it wasn't, his subvocals made his opinion more than clear. "I doubt either of them would care." _You're being foolish,_ was what he _wasn't_ saying. He didn't have to.

The worst part about it? He was probably _right._ But Tyrrana wasn't quite prepared for her little brother to be right just yet, and so she shook her head instead. "You know it as well as I do. Good turians don't just… leave service. They don't walk away from a promising career. And they sure as hell don't drop out of Blackwatch and fall off the grid entirely." She leveled a stern glare at her brother. "_And_ they aren't bad influences on their impressionable nieces and nephews."

"Impressionable," he snorted. "The both of them are too stubborn to be _impressionable._"

"At least they come by it honestly."

Neither one said anything for a while, the silence filled by the sound of Narius' talons tapping gently against the desktop. It had been entirely unfair of him, bringing up Garrus and Solana like that; she hadn't seen either of them in years, and not by accident, either. She'd thought—and rightly so; no one would convince her differently—that her presence in their lives would be nothing short of complicated.

Complicated and _complicating._

"I… realize," he finally said, "you had your reasons."

"Funny, I don't remember you saying that at the time."

"I didn't…" Tyrrana wasn't sure what word Narius wasn't saying, though it could easily have been _agree_ or _understand._ "I didn't… comprehend your reasoning at the time. It was… unlike you."

She wasn't sure whether or not she agreed with that assertion. _Had_ it been like her? She still didn't know. "And now?"

He met her gaze unflinchingly. "With age comes perspective. And I've seen a lot worse things since coming here than whatever you did or didn't do. Leaving Blackwatch seemed so… _irresponsible,_ at a time when I looked up to you—"

"Looked _up_ to me?" she broke in, browplates raising. "I… don't suppose you could say that again so I could record it?"

Narius shot her a cold glare, but kept on as if she hadn't interrupted at all_._ "I couldn't understand it—why you'd give up so much. Why you'd just walk away from it all when you had so much _going_ for you."

She tilted back in the chair and sighed, running a hand over her head, talons tracing the edge of her fringe as she considered what to tell him. She'd never told him the truth—not the whole of it, anyway—and didn't quite feel like starting now. "I _like_ what I'm doing now, Narius. The shelter. It… means something to me, in a way Blackwatch never did. Never could."

"Doing things like taking in scrawny duct rats and straightening their asses out?"

Tyrrana grinned at him. "Exactly that. And now look at what I get in return—I do all the heavy lifting and _you_ get to go to the commissioning ceremony."

One of his browplates twitched as he said, dryly, "I hardly think she'll be pleased to see me there."

The words flew out of her mouth before Tyrrana could temper them—or stop them completely, which would have been the better idea. "Then let me go with you."

"_What?"_

Leaning forward in her chair, Tyrrana braced her hands against Narius' desk. She hadn't _meant_ to say the words, and intellectually she knew it was _mad,_ but, "It could work."

"You're _insane_."

"It could work and you know it. If you'd wanted to take your wife, you could have. It's not as if you're not _allowed_ to bring a guest, right? I'm your _sister._ And it's not as if anyone on Earth is going to know me. If you didn't want to do that, put me in a C-Sec uniform and call me your… your personal assistant!" She shot him a wild grin. "I'll go, and I'll make sure you don't accidentally give yourself anaphylactic shock. It'll be _great._"

Narius looked for a moment, and it was a long, somehow painful moment, like he wanted to agree. He looked, truth be told, like he was _about_ to agree, or at least acquiesce. Then he frowned and leaned back in his chair, giving her a look. She hated that look. It was the expression that said _I've discovered a flaw in your cunning plan._ The worst part about that look was that Narius was usually _right._

"You realize that means coming clean with Shepard," he reminded her. "If we turn up together."

Tyrrana had really been hoping _this time_ he'd be wrong. _Damn him anyway,_ she thought with a scowl, drumming her fingers against the desk as she considered a way to avoid that particular wrinkle.

"We _could_ simply tell her the truth," Narius suggested, but Tyrrana made a distasteful face and shook her head.

"No. A kid like that—"

"She's hardly a _kid_ anymore, sister."

"Yeah, and Garrus grew into his fringe and Solana's not getting her spurs caught in doorways anymore. Doesn't make it any easier to accept. Anyway, what I was saying—a kid like Thena isn't going to appreciate learning we've been playing her this whole time."

"May I remind you my contact with Shepard ended when she left this station," Narius said, a stern edge to his voice. "If anyone's been 'playing' her, it's—"

"Yes, _yes;_ I know," Tyrrana retorted, flicking her hand in a shooing motion as she leaned back in the chair and addressed the ceiling. "If anyone's been playing her, it's me and me alone, and _spirits_ could you just share the blame with me this once?"

Silence reigned for several moments before Narius said, more quietly, the edge gone from his voice and replaced with soft weariness. "Do you never tire of lying, Tyrrana?"

That was a hell of a question to blindside her with, but at least he did it while she was sitting down and already avoiding his eyes. "I do, now that you mention it," she answered quietly, still leaning back in the chair, still looking at the ceiling. And _that_, strangely, was the truth. "And it's ironic, because I came to hate Blackwatch _because_ of the lies."

"If black ops teams dealt in truth and forthrightness," Narius reminded her dryly, "I doubt they would be called _black_ ops."

Tyrrana only snorted. The nerve Narius had touched when he mentioned how it had been she and not _they_ who'd played Thena this long was now exposed and throbbing. At the time she'd been acting on the assumption Thena, like so many humans, would have had an innate distrust of turians. And she'd always figured on coming clean… someday. But there were always too many good excuses not to do that. Of course, they'd seemed more like _reasons_ than excuses before, but now, particularly with Narius' cool blue gaze on her, firm and stern but not _quite_ judgmental (which made it all the worse, not that she'd ever tell him that), she was acutely aware of every less-than-truth, every lie of omission, and every single justification.

This was why she didn't visit her brother often. It was why she darted and changed the subject every time Thena mentioned coming to the Citadel when she had school breaks. It was why Thena _hadn't_ come back to the Citadel since she'd left it.

_It was a ridiculous scheme anyway, _she thought, darkly, _to want to attend a human ceremony at a human institution on a human planet, surrounded by—_

"Tell her I owed you a favor," Narius said abruptly. Tyrrana shot upright in the chair and _stared_ at him.

"_What_ did you say?"

"I said," he repeated calmly, "tell Shepard I owed you a favor. She knows perfectly well you provide C-Sec with intelligence. She won't doubt you. And in the meantime," he added, gathering together several datapads and stacking them neatly, "I will see about acquiring a pass for you. Provided, of course, you don't consider it to be too much of a demotion to be introduced as my… protege."

"Your _protege?_" she echoed, incredulously.

He tilted his head, arching a browplate at her. "It's better than being my assistant, isn't it?"

#

Thena was going to ruin _everything._

"What are you talking about?" she all but croaked. "You can't just… _skip_ it."

"Sure I can," she replied, the connection making her voice crackle and waver. "It's just a formality anyway. Not as if it _means_ anything. I'll still get commissioned."

She clapped a hand over her eyes. Clearly the kid didn't realize just how much of a love affair turians had with _formalities._ Damn it. Trying to think fast and _not_ give away the surprise, Tyrrana took a deep breath that was meant to be both fortifying and steadying, and let it out again. She would be calm. Serene. Collected. She would convince Thena that formalities and ceremonies were the best things _ever._

_Right,_ a dry voice popped up from somewhere far, far in the back of her brain, _because _you _were so easy to convince, weren't you? Because you didn't try to wiggle and weasel out of every single awards presentation, ascendancy ceremony, and every other instance of turian protocol for most of your young adult life?_

"It's a commissioning ceremony," she explained patiently, while the voice in her head jeered at her hypocrisy. "A _milestone. _Spirits, Thena, you can't just blow it off—you'll regret it for the rest of your life!" Tyrrana grimaced, trying not to cringe at the blatancy of the lie—the _enormous_ load of… fiction—she just told, and relieved beyond words that Thena _couldn't see her._

The younger woman's voice came through the comm sounding too tinny by half, which made her dry chuckle sound far more cynical than it had any right to at her age. Had _she_ been that cynical at twenty-two?

Probably.

_Crap,_ she thought, mandibles flaring in irritation_._

"Tyrrana, come on. Life-long regret? Are you being _serious_ here?"

Running a hand over her fringe, Tyrrana paced from one end of the back room to the other. What could she tell Thena, anyway? That Narius was actually _looking forward_ to it, despite his grumbling protests to the contrary? That she'd _be there? _That they'd had to pull strings and call in favors to coax another pass out of that son-of-a-bitch Pallin? That she was willingly going to survive on dextro field rations for a week to go to this stupid thing?

That she'd had to agree to wear a C-Sec uniform?

_All right,_ she thought, pacing the length of the room once more before turning around and heading back again. _Think. You're reasonably intelligent and you haven't been out of spec ops _that _long. You can handle outmaneuvering a twenty-two year old kid._

"Why _don't_ you want to go?" she asked.

"Who the hell am I going to invite?" she asked, defensiveness nearly covering the twinge of sadness in her tone. "I've been issued four tickets. I have _no one_ to give them to. I mean, I can't ask you to come all the way down here from the Citadel. It's… it's too much."

"You'd want me there?" she asked lightly.

"Why wouldn't I?" Thena's reply came without hesitation and that made a traitorous sort of warmth wiggle its way under Tyrrana's plates.

"There _is_ the whole _turian_ thing," she said pointedly. She couldn't help but smile when Thena let out a snort.

"Yeah, and I know I wouldn't be here at all if it wasn't for you. You… man," she said, stopping and laughing. "I'm _glad_ I'm not there."

"Why?"

"Because you'd swat me for this and tell me not to be such a sap." Thena sighed and the rush of air crossed the speakers as static. "Fact is, I don't know where I'd be if you hadn't… taken an interest. I could've gotten myself killed, or got sucked in by the Shadow Broker—I might've wound up on a prison ship somewhere. I know that. And you kept my ass straight. I know that too. And it couldn't have been easy. Believe me, I know that most of all."

"Don't be such a sap," Tyrrana murmured. Thena chuckled. "Listen," she said. "Do it. Just… do it, so I can at least see you graduate on the vids, okay?"

There was a long, incredulous pause. "You… _want_ to see it?"

"Kid, you're severely underestimating just how much we turians love our pomp and circumstance. Of course I want to see it." She chuckled. "Second best thing to being there."

#

"_Second _best thing to being here?"

Tyrrana grinned down at her former charge as graduates, dignitaries, and well-wishers jostled them in the post-ceremony rush; some things never changed, didn't vary, no matter the species. "Can you blame me? I didn't want to spoil the surprise."

Crossing her arms over her chest, Thena arched a disbelieving eyebrow at Tyrrana and looked her up and down. "Yeah, well, seeing you in C-Sec blues definitely counts as a surprise."

"Oh, the less said about _that_ the better. Blue was never my color."

Thena laughed and shook her head. "Don't tell me you joined up just for the privilege of attending this seminal event," she drawled. Oh, Tyrrana could see—she was trying to play it cool, trying to pass it off as if this were the most normal thing in the world, but her smile was just a little too wide, her words punctuated with just a little too much laughter. "How did you even _get_ here? How— just _how?_"

"For starters, I absolutely _did not_ join up with C-Sec." Tyrrana glanced around; Narius was entrenched in conversation with an Alliance man he was acquainted with on the Citadel. Anderson something. Something Anderson. She wasn't surprised; for all he was stiff and reserved, Narius was better at the formal mingling than she was. Always had been. "I helped Vakarian out with a few cases," she said. "Got him some really sweet intel. I figured this was good a way as any to cash in a favor."

"Sneaky," Thena replied, looking impressed. "So you're posing as his…?"

"Protege," Tyrrana answered smoothly before giving a well-practiced snort. "Like I'd agree to stand in as his assistant. _Please_."

Thena glanced over to where Narius was standing, then back at Tyrrana. "And he _agreed_ to that?" she asked, lowering her voice.

Though Tyrrana smiled, a faint pang twinged sharply in her chest. _It was his idea, kid._ "Well, you know, it took some convincing." The reply came easily, though the ache worsened. It was entirely inconvenient that she should be remembering her brother's admonishments in regards to her… flexible relationship with the truth. _And yet._

For years now, Thena had credited Tyrrana with getting her off the station; she always _had_. She believed it had been Tyrrana who'd pushed her into the Academy, who'd helped her reach _this point_—a newly commissioned officer with a whole future ahead of her. But the reality of it was that Tyrrana had did remarkably little; for all that she teased her brother, he'd done more than his fair share of the "heavy lifting" in this little pet project of hers. Hell, it had been his acquaintance with Anderson that got Thena into the Academy. It had been his hard lessons, and the fact that he'd never shied away from being a hard-plated bastard when the need arose, that had helped shape her into the mature young woman standing tall before Tyrrana in her dress blues right now. She'd done, in the grand scheme of things, remarkably little.

And yet here she was, taking all the credit for the poised young woman standing before her. Nothing remained of the scrawny girl who whose nightmares had woken her screaming so many nights. Thena's calm self-assurance bore no resemblance whatsoever to the undersized whelp who'd tried to assault not one, but _two_ Eclipse members outside Chora's Den. In fact, there was now a flinty edge in her eyes, some unspoken _something_ in the tilt of her chin, that made Tyrrana think it'd be Eclipse mercs who'd be in trouble if a similar scenario ever unfolded itself.

She saw Narius in the calm self-assurance; she saw herself in that flinty edge.

"I'm surprised it didn't take outright bribery," Thena chuckled, her words yanking Tyrrana's train of thought away from that particular course.

"Nah, not a C-Sec man like Vakarian," she replied, glancing again at her brother, wondering if _he_ thought they'd done as good a job as _she_ did. "Don't think you'd find one more straight and narrow than him."


	12. L is for Leave

Thena frowned and peered under her bunk; she wasn't looking for anything _particular,_ but a last compulsive sweep for stray datapads or shoes, or anything beyond the random missing button or the occasional stray hair tie didn't feel like the worst idea. The room was bare; Barker had left on the earliest transport she could, headed home to New Mexico for time with her family before shipping out. McTavish had left the day before, headed out to Toronto to spend that time with her fiancé. Her own flight out wasn't until much later that evening, which left her far too much time to poke around the room that had been hers—part hers, anyway—the last four years. It was now entirely too bare—the bunks were stripped, the desks and shelves were cleared, the closets eerily empty. Thena had opened the windows to let in some light and air—their _things_ were gone, but dust remained_—_but the midmorning light only served to accentuate how very empty the room was without Barker's boots by the door, or McTavish's sprawl of datapads covering every inch of her desk. The tiny bathroom they'd shared was equally empty, the stall shower no longer decorated with Renata's underwear, which she'd insisted on hanging to dry, much to Barker's continued annoyance (or possibly _because_ of Barker's continued annoyance, which had always been Thena's personal theory).

"I am _pretty sure_ there's nothing under there but dust bunnies." Renata stood above her, leaning lazily against the stripped bunks, arms folded, an equally lazy grin at her lips.

Thena peered over her shoulder at her. "I'm just checking."

Her friend only rolled her eyes and nudged her toe against Thena's knee, but the grin didn't budge. "For the fifth time, I'm sure. By the by, I got our stuff shipped off to my folks' place." Renata's parents owned a cattle ranch in Montana (a vocation Renata gleefully intended to avoid for as long as humanly possible), and her friend had assured Thena there was more than enough room to store anything that didn't fit in Thena's footlocker. Thena, not wanting to take advantage of Tyrrana's limited space, had accepted the offer.

"And you're sure they don't mind?"

"Please," Renata said with a snort. "They love you. We could switch me out with you and they'd be _thankful._"

"I very much doubt that," Thena chuckled, peering once more under the bed.

"I don't. And for the last time," she said, nudging Thena's knee again, "you got everything. Quit worrying and tell me your plans for leave."

"Nothing special," Thena replied, straightening and running a hand through her hair; bits of fluff and dust floated down and light streaming from now-curtainless windows caught the motes as they floated midair. "The Citadel for a couple weeks. Ray's left an open invite to visit Nebraska."

"Time to meet the family?" she teased with a wink, but Thena shook her head. The grin turned into something more pensive as she sank down on the edge of the bunk. The springs gave a long, forlorn squeak. "Ah. So the off-again, on-again went… off again, again?"

She wrinkled her nose, thinking about this. "I think we're better friends than anything else." And as she said the words, Thena felt the thrum of truth to them, plucked deep in her soul. She _liked_ Ray, she liked spending time with Ray, but extending anything _beyond_ friendship… well, there were too many reasons _not_ to go there, not the least of which were their respective deployments. He was remaining planetside for the time being, and she… was not.

"Do you think you'll go, then? For the cornfields?"

"I haven't decided yet. I guess it could be fun," she replied thoughtfully. "And it _has_ been a while since I've seen cornfields." And it would likely be a longer while before she saw them again.

"Can't say as I've ever had the pleasure," Renata replied, bouncing lightly on the mattress, a veritable tangle of energy that had no proper outlet. "But you ever want to see cows, I'm your girl. God, I will be so glad never to have to sleep on this thing ever again," she said, reaching up for the metal bracings and swinging herself to her feet. "So where're you staying on the Citadel?"

Blowing a lock of hair away from her forehead, Thena sat back on her heels. "Just with a friend," she said evenly. It had been a no-brainer that she'd spend these weeks with Tyrrana; she didn't have an overabundance of other options available, and… Thena _missed_ her. "Why so curious?"

Batting her eyes with entirely false innocence, she replied, "Who says I'm curious?"

"You're asking a lot of questions for someone who _isn't_ curious."

"Hmph. So suspicious, Theeny-beany."

"It's not me being suspicious when you're acting suspiciously, and _please_ don't call me that."

"Eeny-meenie-Theeny-bean—"

_"Steve."_

Then, with a laugh, Renata dropped to her knees, and leaned in _entirely _too close, a gleam in her eyes and a manic grin at her lips. "Fine. Try this on for size: _I know something you don't know_."

That suspicious tendency Renata had just commented on flared to full force as Thena looked up, narrowing her eyes warily. There was absolutely _nothing_ about those words, or the way her friend had phrased them, that left Thena feeling even remotely reassured. "Steve?" she asked on a drawl. "What did you do?"

"I didn't _do_ anything, jeez. I just." Her smile got even wider. "I have a surprise."

She blinked once. "A surprise."

"For you, dummy." And at Thena's look, which she knew was puzzled, _had to be_ puzzled because she _was_, Renata leaned back and sat cross-legged on the floor. "So _maybe_ I took a few liberties and _maybe_ I planned a last hurrah before we get thrown to opposite ends of the galaxy."

"We're both going to Arcturus, that's hardly opposite ends of the—wait. What kinds of _liberties_?" Thena asked, the suspicion in her tone not lightening an iota.

Still looking entirely too satisfied with herself, Renata grinned and tipped her head back, addressing the ceiling. "It is entirely _possible," _she said airily, "that my folks _maybe_ booked a suite in a hotel on the Presidium for a week. _Very_ swish. So I thought, _maybe_, if it was okay with your turian friend—"

"Wait, what?"

"You mean the turian you were talking to at the commissioning ceremony _isn't_ this mysterious friend you're going to stay with?"

"How the hell did you—"

"Theen. You do not have the hugest social calendar. Basic deduction skills, I have them."

"I…" Thena began, but she didn't know what to say. Hadn't known what to say for a while now. "Steve, Tyrrana's…"

Huffing a little, Renata broke in with, "Do I _look_ like I care that you're buds with a bird?"

Thena had to admit she did not.

"So listen," Renata pressed on, "It's week after next. I figure we can gorge ourselves on room service, maybe check out Silversun Strip and try _not_ to look like total rubes doing it. You ever try sushi?"

"No."

"Me either. We can gawk. And I mean—I don't want to horn in on your visit, even though that… looks a whole lot like what I'm doing, I admit, but I kind of…" Wincing a little, she bit her bottom lip, worrying it between her teeth. "I knew if I told you about what I wanted to do, you'd try to talk me out of it. And you're… you're my best friend, okay? And we're at the end of an era here. And God knows we haven't exactly had a whole lot of time to party, what with exams and PT and trials and all. And I thought… one last hurrah for the roomies, _without_ Barker bitching at us over every damn little thing. So…" Renata placed her hands on her knees, her fingers drumming in a restless rhythm. "Did I screw up?"

Thena didn't know what to say to that. Granted, she was staying with Tyrrana primarily because she _didn't_ have anywhere else to stay before deployment. All the same, she was looking forward to the visit. And if she _didn't_ take Ray up on his offer to see Nebraska, then she could still get two weeks with Tyrrana, interspersed with a week with Steve.

There were worse ideas.

"Just how swish are we talking?"

"The hotel? Oh, it's the _swishiest._"

#

The shelter looked so much… _smaller_ than she remembered it. Not the Citadel, though—that was still larger than Thena could wrap her head around. But as she made her way away from rapid transit, step after step taking her through alleyways and side-streets, a route ingrained in her like a tattoo, Thena felt as if she were a too-large Alice trying to squeeze through a tiny door. She moved through the crowds, ever mindful of her footlocker, of bumping into people—and even more mindful of anyone bumping into _her_; pickpockets on the Citadel were numerous—until she turned a painfully familiar corner and caught sight of her destination.

Her heart gave a sudden, hard pound, lurching and sticking in her throat. Thena remembered all too clearly the first night she'd come here, thin and hungry and full to overflowing with grief and anger and the sort of weariness no sixteen year-old should ever have to shoulder. If she were any other newly-commissioned graduate fresh out of the Academy right now, she'd be going home, to spend the last few weeks before deployment with family and loved ones. And with that thought, a hollowness Thena had thought herself long past dug itself once again into her chest leaving her cold.

She didn't even have _graves_ to visit.

Closing her eyes, she drew in a deep breath and let it out again. She took several more, until the hollow sensation slowly started filling in again, and the sudden burn of unshed tears subsided. She didn't have the family she was born to, that much was true, but she also wasn't alone or friendless. She had… something _like_ a family. Tyrrana and Jevia were like a pair of hardass aunts who took precisely no shit from anyone, and Renata was… well, if not like the sister she'd never had, Steve was _definitely_ like a cousin that always managed to get her hip deep in trouble. She had people who cared about her now, and that was a damn sight more than she'd had six years ago.

Straightening her spine and shoving her shoulders back, Thena crossed the pedway and strode straight through the front doors, catching Tyrrana standing by the door to the back storage area.

"The prodigal has returned," she said with a grin, dropping her bag.

Tyrrana snorted, one mandible flicking out in a crooked smirk. "Oh, was that today?"

From the back room came Jevia's voice. "Don't believe her for a second. She's been checking the clock every ten minutes since your transport was supposed to arrive."

"Spirits, did you _have_ to tell her, Jev?"

"I warned you that you were being insufferable." With that, Jevia came to the door, what looked like the inner guts of a tactical cloak in her hands, and nodded at Thena. "You grew," she said, blinking.

Thena chuckled and came forward to give Tyranna a quick hug. "Yeah. Bad habit we humans have."

"It's a relief," Jevia said, reaching up to yank Thena's braid. "I didn't have the first damned idea how you'd fire a gun without the recoil knocking you flat on your ass."

The week Thena spent with Tyrrana was the furthest thing from relaxing, but all the same it was a return to a familiar routine, and one Thena… had found herself missing, just a little. She'd certainly missed Tyrrana (and even the taciturn Jevia), and being welcomed as a friend as opposed to a responsibility (or worse, an annoyance, and Thena was certain she'd been _that_ on occasion) was strange but _nice._

Tyrrana had set up a cot for her in the modest apartment above the shelter, which she and Jevia shared, and Thena spent most of the week helping the two of them with the shelter, which was _infinitely_ different from staying there (and in other ways it wasn't terribly different at all; Thena broke up three fights in as many nights). There were new faces, and fewer humans than had stayed here in her day—Nevvar had died in the ducts not long after Thena left for Earth, and Jerry had been picked up by C-Sec and sent off the station to a juvenile work colony soon thereafter. Carlos, so far as anyone knew, went back home, but mostly the kids she'd known and taken up with had simply… vanished. Even more disconcerting than that was when Thena went to check the mailbox she'd set up for the rest of the kids, transferring what few credits she could save up from her tiny scholarship stipend.

It was entirely untouched, unopened since her departure. Every single credit remained.

Later that night, with the mailbox—and attached credits—weighing heavily on her, Thena went up to the shelter's rooftop, staring out at the lights of the lower wards. Her solitude lasted for a few hours before the rooftop hatch opened; she could tell by the flanged grunt that it was Tyrrana, come looking for her. The soft clink of glass told Thena she hadn't come empty-handed.

"Please don't tell me that's asari gin," she said dryly, looking over her shoulder at Tyrrana.

"Not after _that_ hangover, kid," she tossed back easily, handing Thena a bottle of dual-chiral beer. "You know, I'd had no idea humans could _get_ that sick."

"Me neither," Thena replied on a humorless chuckle as she twisted off the cap, "and I was the human getting sick."

They sat together in companionable silence a few moments, leaving Thena wondering exactly when Tyrrana was going to—

"So, how come you've sequestered yourself up here the better part of three hours?"

There it was. Thena shot her a sidelong glance, took a long pull from her beer and shrugged. "Nice view?"

"Bullshit," Tyrrana retorted amiably.

She was right; the view was shit. Always had been.

With a grimace, Thena ran one hand over her head, fingers trailing down the ridges of her braid until she reached the end. "I've been naive as hell, haven't I?" she asked, rubbing her thumb over the bottle's smooth lip.

"Naive?" asked Tyrrana, cocking a browplate at her.

Thena's shoulders lifted in a helpless, frustrated shrug. "I thought I could help them."

"What makes you so sure you _weren't_ a help?" The question was phrased lightly as Tyrrana began scratching the label off the beer bottle.

"Nobody'd touched the mailbox since I left. Not once."

She fell silent a moment, still scraping away at the label. "You gave the code to Nevvar, right?" At Thena's nod, Tyrrana let out a long sigh and shook her head. "He probably didn't have any chance to give it over to anyone else before… well. Before."

Thena closed her eyes. Goddamn Nevvar. God _damn_ him. What the hell'd he been thinking? He _knew better_ than to get so close to the fucking ducts. Unless the Keepers had changed the layout, but still… _still._ He knew better. She'd tried to make sure he'd known better. Thena drew in a tired breath and let it out slowly, then took a long drink from the bottle. "So what should I do now?"

"Ahh," Tyrrana breathed, then knocked back the rest of her beer. "Because now you're wondering if you should take all those credits back or do a little good with 'em." She looked down at her empty bottle. "Shit. I should've brought more of these." She grimaced. "I'm bad at these kinds of conversations."

Tilting the bottle back again, Thena swallowed the last gulp of her beer, which was slowly going warm. "Why, because you'd tell me to take the money and run?"

"Probably. On the first try."

Thena snorted. "And the second?"

"I'd tell you, Thena, that you can only do what you can do. You can't _make_ people accept help, no matter how badly they may need it." On Thena's skeptical look, Tyrrana set down the bottle with a clink and gave her a long, hard, calculating look. "You did what you could for them. Deep down, you know that."

She opened her mouth to argue, but didn't get very far. "Tyrr—"

"No. You're still allowed to take care of yourself, kid. Don't forget that."

"But—"

"Take care of yourself, Thena Shepard. Go and hang out with your academy buddy next week. Make some memories. Eat too much, drink too much, laugh too much. Go lose some money betting on varren racing. Be young. You're in a career now that can chew you up and suck you dry if you're not careful. So be careful. And have some damned _fun,_ okay?"

"That an order?"

Tyrrana chuckled and shook her head. "If it's got to be."

#

The hotel was indeed, in Renata's words, _swish._

Truth be told, a not-too-terribly-small part of Thena missed Tyrrana's place, missed the noise on Zakera, missed Jevia's constant tinkering and Tyrrana's… damn near everything about Tyrrana. That same part of her didn't feel at all at home at The Presidium Grand, with its Thessian marble lobby and its thick carpeting and its silent elevators and its heated pool. She'd felt self-conscious and grubby at first, arriving with Renata—who'd been equally grubby—both of them gripping their battered footlockers and trying not to stare. Renata, who'd managed never to leave planetside until now, and Thena, who'd never reached this side of the Citadel until now.

They'd done a very bad job of not staring.

_Particularly_ when Renata kept telling Thena random pieces of trivia about the building and its furnishings in a decidedly _unquiet _stage-whisper. Every single time they passed underneath the lobby's enormous crystal chandelier, Renata reminded her, in that same stage-whisper, that each piece was painstakingly hand-cut by a single volus master craftsman over ten years.

Every. Time.

By the tenth recitation, Thena didn't bother trying to hide her laughter. By the twentieth, she began to suspect the hotel staff of plotting to throw them out.

Insofar as the Presidium's amusements went, neither young woman found themselves bored. At Renata's insistence, Thena enjoyed her first pedicure—the hotel spa was a high-ceilinged, multi-windowed affair that afforded one of the most breathtaking views Thena had ever seen. She and Renata barely spoke, enveloped by enormous chairs upholstered in butter-soft leather, staring out at the Presidium in all its glory; skycars whirred back and forth against a white, windowed backdrop, the vehicles moving almost faster than Thena could track with her eyes. It was a marvel of sleek, quiet synchronicity, one she could barely believe could exist so close to the other wards, like the shiny, polished side of an otherwise scratched coin.

By the end of the week, they were meandering aimlessly past restaurants and nightclubs, finally settling at a table near an open-air cafe. Renata stretched her legs out, admiring her purple-painted toes a moment before leaning back in her chair and shooting a grin over to Thena.

"What do you think—will Arcturus Station be a cake walk after this or what?"

Thena shot her an amused look. "If by 'cake walk' you mean this week's given me a renewed appreciation for soft beds and showers that actually run _hot,_ then yeah."

"That's totally what I meant."

"Anyway, Arcturus is probably The Presidium Grand, compared to onboard crew quarters."

Renata smiled a little, but sadly. They were traveling to Arcturus together, since neither had been stationed planetside, but from there neither of them had the first idea what their assignments would be from there. Renata had expressed a hope to be assigned on the _SSV Logan_, but Thena had no—or was trying very hard to keep herself from having any—expectations whatsoever. Truth be told, she'd barely _thought_ about Arcturus or her eventual deployment these last two weeks, which was the whole damned point of leave in the first place. Her eyebrows furrowed together in a frown as she looked across the table at Renata—one of the best friends she'd made since… _since_, and she realized suddenly, sharply, how badly she'd _miss_ that camaraderie once it was gone.

"Oh. _Oh_, you're looking sentimental," Renata said, planting both hands on the table and pushing to her feet. "We need alcohol, _now. _No melancholy sentimental crap on my watch, okay?"

In under ten minutes, Renata was carrying a shopping bag that swayed and clinked with chilled beer bottles.

She grinned, waggling her eyebrows at Thena. "We can drink it off the balcony and see if we get in trouble for flicking the bottle caps at skycars."

Captain Vakarian hovered in Thena's memory like a particularly foreboding ghost and she barely managed to keep from shuddering. "Maybe not."

"You've got a better idea, I suppose?"

She considered it. For several very long moments, Thena continued considering it.

"Theen?"

"Yeah?"

"You go into a fugue state or something?"

"No, I… no. I'm good. I just had an idea."

"A good place for drinking? Lay on, MacDuff, and damned be him who first cries 'Hold! Enough!'" She then looked down at the bag, tilting her head in thought. "Well. No saying 'enough' before we've had three apiece, I suppose."

#

To her credit, Renata didn't balk when she stepped off rapid transit. She also didn't balk as Thena led the way through narrow alleys and along crowded, neglected pedways.

"All right," she said, finally, when Thena took them down a narrow path between buildings that smelled heavily of something fried, "I'll bite. Where're we going?"

Thena stopped when they reached another pedway, and nodded at the building across the way. "That's the turian shelter."

"Uh huh."

She swallowed hard, never pulling her gaze from the front door. It was early in the evening—people didn't start trickling into Tyrrana's place until much later—and she could see Tyrrana looking down at her omni-tool, gesturing wildly at whoever she was talking to. "So I told you I was… kind of on my own for a while. After Mindoir."

"Uh huh."

She shrugged, trying to keep the movement fluid and careless. As if this moment didn't matter. As if she weren't keenly aware that she was opening herself up to scrutiny—or worse, judgment. "And I, uh, stayed here."

"You stayed at the… turian shelter?" she asked, her tone revealing nothing but curiosity. "But what about—"

"HabCapsules made me sick. Claustrophobic. I couldn't breathe in them."

"Oh. But… but turians are dextro. Aren't they?"

"I didn't eat the food."

"Oh."

"And… Tyrrana let me stay."

"Tyrrana. That's who came to graduation?" At Thena's nod, Renata looked suddenly thoughtful. "She's important to you?"

"Yeah," Thena managed through the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat. Sweat prickled along her spine and slid downwards, but she stayed perfectly still, watching her friend out of the corner of her eye. "She… she kept me out of trouble. Talked me into joining the Alliance." _She taught me responsibility. She taught me consequences. She taught me to stand up for myself. I don't doubt she's half the reason I'm even here right now._ "She's… yeah." Thena stopped, clearing her throat. "She is."

"And she won't mind if we just… barge in? I thought turians were supposed to be more uptight than that."

Whoever Tyrrana had been talking to, the conversation was apparently over, and she caught sight of Thena through the front window and gave a wave, beckoning her over, mandibles flicking out in a grin that was, by now, as welcome as it was familiar.

"You know…I don't think she'll mind."

Renata slapped Thena so hard on the back that she stumbled forward a step. "Then let's do this thing. I think it's time for me to hear some embarrassing stories about your misspent youth, Theeny-bean."

"Fine. But for the love of everything holy, _don't_ tell Tyrrana you call me that."

"I make no promises alcohol might break later."


	13. M is for Maw

It's a tremor that jerks her from her slumber, along with the rest of the off-duties trying to catch some shut-eye in the stark modular building, with its stark, hard bunks. The adrenaline is enough to burn away any residual exhaustion—she's lived that way for years, never sleeping too deeply for too long—and it only takes seconds to pull on a pair of pants over thin athletic shorts and shove her feet into boots. The ground shakes again, nearly sending her toppling off her bunk.

Earthquake?

_That's not right, can't be right,_ she thinks, her mind churning along clumsily after its adrenaline-fueled kickstart. Akuze doesn't _get_ earthquakes—she remembers that much from the mission briefing. Earthquakes didn't make for missing colonists, anyway—and nobody would colonize on a planet that was so geologically active.

The ground rumbles again, and Thena sits hard—almost falls—on the bunk, pulling sharply at her bootlaces, tying them. It takes only seconds, but in those seconds, the sharp staccato of gunfire sends a chill shooting down her spine.

Nobody _shoots_ at earthquakes.

The thought barely has time to coalesce when a sound unlike any she's heard before—a deafening dual-toned shriek that shakes the floor and practically rattles her teeth—tears through the barracks. Those of them still tugging on boots or checking their weapons shift into double-time; Thena checks her service pistol. Anything that can make a sound like that isn't going to be taken down by pistol-fire, though, and she sprints from the barracks with a handful of other marines, making a beeline for the armory. The predawn dimness is broken only by the harsh white emergency lighting and flashlight beams, bouncing as their owners ran, some shouting orders, but many shouting questions, the most popular of which was, "What the fuck _was_ that?"

The rumbling comes again, distant at first, like thunder, but the noise grows as the ground shudders beneath her feet, sending her stumbling as she runs. But then the ground beneath her feet lurches and _shakes_ and tumbles forward, landing hard on her stomach, the blow forcing all the air out of her lungs. Everything's shaking, and all around her Thena can hear shouts and screams and the metallic groan and crunch of modular buildings collapsing onto themselves.

She does not think about Mindoir. Does not _let_ herself.

When that horrible shriek sounds again—she claps her hands over her ears, but it does nothing to muffle the noise—Thena pushes to her feet and looks up in time to see _something_, something so huge her mind cannot quite wrap itself around the reality of the thing. It's a huge shadow against the slowly lightening sky, largely indistinguishable. Part of the creature glows blue against the emergency lighting as the beams cut swaths through the grey pre-dawn; as the ground shakes, so do the beams of light, but that blue glow never dims. The white beams waver drunkenly, flickering, but even so, Thena can see enough of what is rearing up above the camp to know they are well and truly _fucked. _Whatever it is they've disturbed, it's pissed off now.

The armory is still standing, but barely. The whole structure is leaning pathetically to one side, but soldiers are pushing their way in and out of the damaged structure, bigger and bigger weapons in hand. A cold wave of dread crashes over her as another earsplitting cry makes the sagging building tremble further—nothing short of a rocket launcher is going to make a dent in anything that big.

The armory's light is stuttering off and on again, and despite the strobe effect, Thena finds an assault rifle, but not a single rocket launcher, which is a damned shame. Her hands close around the weapon's familiar grip even as a dry voice in the back of her head mutters, _And exactly what do you expect to take down with this thing? Like firing at Godzilla with a pea-shooter._ Still, impossible situation aside—giant, screaming _monster_ aside—she's not about to wander out there unarmed. Something's better than nothing.

As she exits the armory, there is another rumble and the leaning structure gives a long, loud warning creak. Thena sprints for the door as the building finally gives up, but one of the wall panels falls like an enormous domino, slamming hard into her shoulder, sending Thena stumbling to the side even as she throws herself forward, landing on her knees outside of the ruined building. As she pushes to her feet, rotating her shoulder—and ignoring the deep ache that shoots down her arm—the shrieking goes quiet for a moment, but before Thena can summon even the most fleeting sense of relief, there comes a deep, wet splatter of a sound. Soon the air is thick with a noxious stench that sears her mouth, her throat, her lungs like the unholy offspring of chlorine, bile, and rot. Choking, Thena pulls her t-shirt up over her mouth, squinting as her eyes tear against the burn in the air.

The beast slides back into the ground again, but Thena has no illusions whatsoever about their safety right now. Nothing that big subsides unless it's decided to toy with its prey.

She's not in the mood to be anything's prey. Not tonight. Not _ever,_ preferably.

Beyond the modular buildings comprising the camp, the landscape is a veritable battle zone of ruined vehicles, scarred earth, and injured or dead marines. Her grip on her rifle is sweaty as she uses the the gun's light to pick her way through debris and bodies, trying to keep her shirt firmly over her mouth, though it does little against the acrid stink. The wind shifts, which helps, but not much.

On the other side of what remains of their camp, the blue flare of biotics casts a faint light, but Thena is not close enough to see what's going on; groaning metal and painful cries tells her enough. All around, injured men and women haul themselves to anything resembling safety. There isn't much right now; their camp is now a wasteland of broken, dilapidated structures, crushed or collapsed. But it's not the camp she's concerned with right now. Thena's scanning the injured and dead, looking carefully at every face. Her stomach twists with nausea when she sees unstaring eyes she recognizes or twisted, mauled bodies with familiar names on their uniforms—among them, the commanding officer and his XO—but she won't look away, _can't_ look away—

"Thena? Thena! _Theen!_"

She whirls, holding the rifle's light up. When the wavering beam settles on the speaker's face, Thena lets out a long, shaky breath. It's Steve. She looks like hell, leaning heavily on a long-barreled sniper rifle, blood soaking one pant leg, and burns mottling her arms, one of which is wrapped protectively around her middle, but it's her.

"You okay?"

"Been better," she says, turning and starting off in the other direction. The sniper rifle was doing an admirable job of doubling as a crutch. "What the fuck _is_ that thing?"

"No idea beyond big, mean, and damn near indestructible."

Steve snorts. "I prefer those three adjectives to be on _our_ side in a fight."

"And I'm not sure I'd call this a _fight._" And it's not. By Thena's count, this is the second, maybe the third strike against their camp, and from what she's seen, more than half the men and women in the platoon are dead already. "What happened to you?"

"Couldn't sleep, so I went to the mess to write a few letters home." She shakes her head. "Then the ground started _moving_ and the damn building started to come down. Got pinned under one of the roof panels—"

"_Shit._"

"Few of the other engineers on my team were around to dig me out," she explains, glancing around them as they pick their way around the debris. "Guess we're all insomniacs. Don't know where they went, though. Damned lucky I found _you._"

"Medigel?"

"Got some." She grimaces. "Don't want to use it. Not yet."

"Why the fuck not?"

"What, I should dope my ass up and then let it eat me? You've had better plans, Theen."

The low, distant rumble vibrates beneath their feet, ruined buildings rattling with it. Whatever that thing was, it's coming again. "Speaking of plans, we need one."

"Something better than 'run like hell,' I suppose," Renata replies over the din. "Where's Commander Hughes?"

"Gone," Thena answers, looking around them. "Dead." The tremors are worsening, and whatever the hell that thing is, it's going to come out of the ground again any minute.

"_Fuck."_

Steve's right, though. They need a plan. The noise is getting louder, and the ground is shaking as if Hell itself were trying to force its way out. "We need to get to the tanks," she yells over the noise.

"We're gonna try to ram it?" Steve shouts back. "With a _Mako_? Are you nuts?"

Thena shakes her head. There are distress beacons in the tanks. No mystery now what happened to the colonists, and the Alliance needs to know what the hell happened here before they try to send any _more_ teams down to the planet. The ground gives a violent shudder beneath them, and the thing erupts from the ground again. Now, though, dawn is upon them enough for Thena to see what's trying to kill them.

It is literally nothing she's ever seen before, worse than anything she could have imagined, even in her worst nightmares. It is enormous, with pincers and a gaping mouth, its powerful body surging upward before slamming itself down, crushing the remains of buildings, and any living thing nearby. It screams and spits and thrashes, leveling their camp before her eyes.

_There's no way we can kill that thing,_ she realizes, every bone in her body going cold, her stomach twisting. Then, dropping her assault rifle and grabbing Renata's arm, Thena slings it around her neck.

"_Run!"_ she yells.

The earth shakes with a sound too like a roar, sending them both stumbling. All around them, otherwise sure fingers lose their grips on weapons. Those who _do_ shoot—and many still alive _do_—find themselves firing useless rounds against a foe too large to wound. It is too large to fit into her imagination, too large with too many teeth, and the cry—the shriek—it is not a _cry_, no, cries are the sounds _they're_ making.

Cries and screams. Gunfire. Smoke.

She doesn't think about Mindoir. She runs, towing Renata along with her.

If they make it to the beacons, someone one will know what happened to them, she thinks, a lone stray thought fueling her as she runs, feet sinking too easily into the sand. If they can reach the Mako, she can activate one of the distress beacons.

Got to reach the Mako.

Steve's arm is tight around her neck; she's limping along, dragged, mostly, her free arm still clutched around her midsection. Broken ribs, Thena thinks. No surprise, if she'd been trapped under a collapsed _roof_.

_She's probably bleeding internally_, a voice whispers. Thena ignores it. They haven't got a doctor—they haven't even got a medic. What they've got is a soldier and an engineer, both wounded, both trying to reach a fucking tank and trying not to go sprawling every time the ground shakes. They have medigel that Renata has steadfastly refused to use until they make it to relative safety.

Thena has her own injuries, and they are screaming at her with every step. Her lungs and throat still burn, and she's starting to suspect something in her shoulder is broken. Time enough to worry about that later. Later. Not _now._

On the other side of the camp, there are only two Makos and a Grizzly left—the rest of the tanks have been commandeered already and are shooting at the huge beast, with little or no effect beyond angering it further. Thena hauls Steve into one of the remaining Makos, and she lands in the seat with a gasp and a wet, rattling cough. That cough sends a renewed bolt of worry deep into Thena's brain, but Steve waves it off.

"Medigel, Steve. Now."

But Renata shakes her head. "You need my brain in the game, Theen," she says with a wince. "That shit makes me too loopy."

"Right. Because that'd be a change," she mutters.

"Ouch. Gonna hurt my feelings," wheezes Renata, rapid, nimble fingers powering up the Mako's shields.

"Your feelings will survive if we do." The engine lets out a growl that, for the moment, drowns out the two-toned screech outside. Thena jerks the tank into gear, sending them shooting into reverse, sending them far enough to see the _thing_ in all its horrible glory. Its long, basilisk body whips back, its terrible mouth wide open as it shrieks its victory over them, plunging forward and down, further demolishing the camp, wrapping buildings (or what remain of buildings) and vehicles and _marines_—men and women she knew, men and women she'd trained with, served with, fought with, drank with—in its massive pincers and rearing back, sending all into its gaping mouth, lined all around with too many nightmare teeth.

Steve arms the canon, but there is a moment Thena hesitates, her thumb hovering over the trigger.

Fire, or retreat?

Though she knows it only takes seconds to do so, Thena surveys the carnage in front of her. Enough time for the creature to whip forward again, crunching two Grizzlies beneath its body.

It is then she realizes she can't see any more fire. Nobody's firing weapons.

_Because everyone's dead._

Something deep and long-buried twinges painfully, a harsh, glass-edged echo, resonating through her breast. She is sixteen again, forced to watch as her home, her family, her friends are all taken from her in the smell of smoke, amid the sounds of gunfire. A cough off to her right yanks Thena back to the moment, and her mind is made up. She sends the Mako careening backward again before twisting the wheel as hard as she can, sending the vehicle turning around in a spray of sand and rock. To shoot now would only invite a chase, and by now it's imperative to get back in contact with Alliance command—if _they_ die here tonight, who knew how many _more_ soldiers would be sent down?

"Good call," Renata manages with a gasp. "I was worried you might want to go out in a blaze of glory."

"Not much of a blaze when something can crush you like a bug" she grinds out through clenched teeth as the Mako lurches and leaps over the terrain. She winces every time Renata breathes a gasp of pain, but there's nothing to be done for it; tanks aren't known for having particularly good shock absorbency.

Once far enough away from the camp, she lets the tank roll to a stop.

"Good spot for a distress beacon," she breathes, willing her voice to stay steady.

"And if it's not," Renata drawls, "you can just drive around in circles until someone gets here, so they can see our distress firsthand."

"I'd rather it didn't come to that."

"Me too. Shit, but you are horrible with this thing."

"It's a _tank_," Thena retorts, crawling around to the small cargo area and wrestling free one of the distress beacon kits. "Not a luxury skycar," she adds with a grunt when the kit pulls free.

Renata twists around in the seat and looks up at Thena. "Need me to set it up?"

"No," is her sharp retort as she heaves open the hatch. "You. Medigel. _Now._"

Dark eyes blink once, then twice. "Aye-aye, ma'am," she says. "Jeez, _someone's_ bossy after she's been running for her life."

Thena struggles with the beacon; it feels like an age since her training, but she gets the distress call recorded and sets the beacon to start transmitting. By the time she crawls back into the Mako, Renata has dosed herself with medigel—her breathing is better, and if the expression on her face is anything to go by, she's in significantly less pain.

"You okay?" she asks, settling back into her seat. Renata replies with a drowsy affirmative. After a moment, rubbing sleepily at her eyes, Renata mumbles, "That'll teach us to hope for an assignment together, yeah?"

"Could've been worse."

"Oh, it could always be worse. Anyone who says otherwise just isn't using their imagination." She grimaces and coughs, a deep, troubling sound.

"Steve, are you—"

"I'm good. I won't say no to a detour into a well-stocked medbay once we're picked up, but I'm okay for now." She doesn't say anything else for a moment, and the silence grows between them, filling every crevice of the cramped vehicle. Then, "They… will come for us, right?"

"No reason why they wouldn't," Thena answers quietly, but she herself has had the same worrying thought. It chases around and around in her head, like a dog after its own tail. "They'll expect a sitrep at some point. When they don't get one, they'll probably try making contact. When _that_ doesn't work, they'll likely send a team to see what the hell happened. Once they get in range of us…"

"The distress signal will tell them what happened," Renata adds, "which is good, because by that point we'll have starved to death."

"We've got emergency rations. Don't be so dramatic." There's a cache of medigel in the tank as well, which reassures her somewhat. Thena leans back in the seat; no amount of shifting makes it comfortable. "Besides, other ships are up there. Someone else could pick up on the signal. Weirder things have happened."

#

By the second day, Thena is beginning to worry. Their emergency rations are fine—more than enough there to get them through a week—but for all their efforts to use medigel judiciously, that supply is dwindling far too quickly. Compounded with that, Renata's breathing has gotten worse. Neither of them had a decent medical scanner program on their omni-tools, a fact that Renata has tried to employ to deflect Thena's worry, but that was an altogether fruitless endeavor. Thena is already worried, and has been for some time.

When night falls, she's writing a letter to Tyrrana on her omni-tool. The pain in her shoulder has subsided to a dull, deep ache. She's still certain she's fractured something, but she's just as certain Renata needs their medigel stores more than she does.

"Hey, Theen." Renata's voice is husky with what Thena hopes was sleep.

"Yeah?" she replies, putting away the glowing interface.

"Where should we go next time we're on leave?"

The question makes something inside her twist painfully, in a way that has nothing to do with her injuries. "I think we could make the Citadel a tradition."

"Yeah. We could visit your friend, too. Tyrrana. Hell, I didn't know turians could drink like that."

"She said the same thing about humans afterward."

Renata lets out a harsh, ragged sound that Thena realizes too late was a chuckle. "Yeah, long as it's not asari-made, huh?"

Grimacing, Thena shoots her friend a look in the dim light. "Should've known it was too much to hope you wouldn't remember _that_ story."

"Hell no. I've got half a mind to hunt down a bottle of that stuff when we get out of this, just to see how green you'll turn."

"We make it out of this, Steve, I'll drink some for you."

#

"Maybe not the Citadel."

"Say what now?"

Renata's breathing is more labored now. She's perfectly aware of how low their medigel supply is, and she's trying to make it last. "I said, maybe not the Citadel. Next time we're on leave."

"Where do you want to go, Steve?"

"Let's go to my folks' place. You'd like it. Cows. Horses. Ever ride a horse?"

There's a lump in her throat she can't swallow away. "Can't say that I have."

"Easy as falling off a log." Renata sends Thena a strained grin. "Easy as falling off a horse, too." She swallows hard, hiding—trying to hide—her sudden grimace. "I'll teach you. It'll be great. Trail rides. Campfires. There's a pond, too. We can go swimming."

"And if it's the middle of winter?"

"Ice skating, then."

"I can't ice-skate, either."

"Sounds like I'll have my work cut out for me then, won't I?"

#

By the morning of the third day, the medigel is gone.

"I'm okay," Renata insists around a wet cough, but the red spatter against her hand tells a different story. She tries to rub it off on her pants, but Thena has seen and her initial suspicion is confirmed into her worst fear. The medigel has slowed the bleeding—possibly even allowed for some clotting—but that's all gone now, and Renata is bleeding into her lungs.

Hauling herself out of the Mako, Thena checks the distress beacon, but it's behaving exactly as it should. She barely—_barely_—keeps herself from kicking the beacon out of sheer frustration.

_Hold it together,_ she orders herself._ Falling apart isn't going to help either of us._

When she climbs back into the tank, it's to find Renata sitting very still, staring at the console. The wet rattle in her lungs is the only sound in the tiny space, a constant reminder of vanishing time and all the ships that haven't shown up yet.

"Tell me about your folks' place," Thena says impulsively, cramming herself between the two seats and taking Renata's hand.

When her friend looks up, Thena sees those familiar brown eyes are bright with tears. She's never seen Renata so _afraid,_ and she hates it, _despises_ that lost helplessness. It takes a moment for Renata to collect herself, but she does, dashing away the tears before they can fall, and nods once. The shallow breath is unnaturally loud in the compartment, but she tells Thena about her parents' ranch, tells her about the barn with its hayloft she fell out of when she was ten, tells her about the pastures and the pond, the horses (Willie, Jazz, Peanut, and Romeo) and the cows, the cattle-dogs and barn-cats.

"We'll go," she tells Renata, squeezing her hand, doing her best to ignore how cold her fingers have gotten. "Next shore leave we get, we'll go. You can teach me to ride a horse, but God help me, I'm kicking your ass if I fall."

"You're not gonna fall."

"Says you."

Renata squeezes her hand, eyes shining with unshed tears again. "I'd catch ya."

Thena steadfastly ignores the blood staining Renata's teeth. She will not cry. Not now, not when the best friend she's ever known is this _scared._ "My dignity thanks you," she replies thickly. "So then what, after the riding lesson?"

"Dip in the pond, maybe."

"Sounds good." Thena brings her free hand to brush back Renata's sweaty bangs, clumped against her clammy forehead. "Then?"

But Renata's lower lip trembles and she shakes her head, tears spilling free. "I can't."

"Sure you can. What next?"

It takes a moment. Her friend is clearly struggling—a struggle that lasts no more than the length of a few heartbeats, but seems to take so much longer than that—when finally she does the improbable. She leans forward and presses a gentle kiss to Thena's cheek. "That."

Thena blinks at Renata, once, then twice, searching her face and finding sorrow, fear… and what looks a great deal like regret. Realization slams hard into her gut.

"…Steve?"

"I'm sorry," she says on a rasp.

"You never… you never said."

"Never seemed the right time. Didn't think you—you'd—"

"You set me up on a date with Ray. I don't—"

She shrugged. "I'm not _selfish_. You liked him." Another series of coughs wracks her frame and Renata grimaces, then glares her annoyance at the blood on her sleeve. "You're my best friend. Didn't want to ruin that, either."

"You're an _idiot_," Thena manages, her throat closing.

Renata gives her another shrug. "Maybe. We're still friends. Could've had a horrible, messy breakup, and wouldn't things be awkward now if we had?"

Leaning forward, she presses a kiss to Renata's forehead. "Shut up," she murmurs against the skin. "They're coming. Just… hang around a little longer."

"Well, yeah. Who'll teach you to ride if I don't?"

#

She's sitting on the roof of the Mako when the Kodiak lands. She's been sitting there seven hours by now, sunburnt and insect-bitten, knees drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped tightly around her legs. Two Alliance soldiers take her aboard while three others recover the remains from the Mako.

She learns the thing that killed them all is called a thresher maw. The next thing she learns is that she is the attack's only survivor.

By seven hours.


	14. N is for Nerve

It really was as plain as the nose on her face.

Thena knew what they all saw when they looked at her, because she saw it too. First she saw it in their eyes, in creased foreheads and worried frowns. Then, later, she saw it in her own mirror, once she was allowed a mirror—standard operating procedure forbade it at first—the reflection that showed a too pale, too thin face. But more than that, tension lingered in the set of her mouth, lurked in the blue of her eyes. She scarcely recognized herself anymore; the image reflected in front of her resembled nothing of the person she knew—she _remembered_—herself to be. This person was someone else, someone different. She was someone who made doctors frown and tap out cryptic notes to themselves on their omni-tools.

Category Six. It was possible, wasn't it? Probable, even. Other soldiers, _better_ soldiers than she had been pushed over that ledge before, hadn't they? For Thena to think she was somehow _immune_ to it was nothing short of sheer arrogance. Hell, she could practically feel the line beneath her feet, that balance wavering between solid ground and nothing at all, like a tightrope with no net below.

Then again, going crazy had the potential to be a nice change. Reality had done her no favors, so maybe it _was_ time to check out. Give the world a cheerful single-digit salute and check the hell out, always particularly tempting on the mornings she woke up to the roar of fire in her ears and the stench of smoke and burning bodies in her nostrils, or the nights she jerked awake in the dark, unable to tell dream from reality from memory. Some nights she and Renata ran through endless cornfields; other nights Jason or Troy or Mom or Dad died in her arms inside a cramped tank. Bad days started with mornings she couldn't tell nightmare from memory.

Today was a bad day.

Thena stalked down a series of bland hallways, took an elevator down, cut across vast lobby to yet another wing, another elevator, more hallways. Until she reached a quiet corridor ending with a bland door that hissed open to reveal a plush waiting room. Yet _another_ in a series of appointments she was meant to keep. And she did, grudgingly. Never _waiting_, but _pacing._ Walking the length of the room, one end to the other, over and over again.

Thena never missed an appointment. Even on the bad days. She was a model patient—a soldier used to following orders, even if those orders involved conversations she didn't want to have revealing secrets she didn't want to share. But she showed up. She conversed. She _shared._ That's probably what they'd say after she went Category Six. They'd say, _That Thena Shepard—hell of a patient, never missed an appointment. Shame about her. Thought she was supposed to be some kind of survivor or something._

She really hated that word. _Survivor._

Being a survivor sucked. It was nothing but being left a mess, a huge mess, with no choice but to clean it up, all the while telling yourself you ought to feel _lucky_ for having this shit to deal with at all. But if Thena's feelings on the matter were any indication, luck was the last emotion survivors tended to feel, preceded occasionally by guilt, anger, resentment, or exhaustion_._

She was _tired_ of being a survivor.

First she'd been The Mindoir Survivor, and now she was The Akuze Survivor. But for all these monikers were probably meant to be a compliment, a testament to a collection of abstract qualities Thena didn't give a damn about, the words were stale. Meaningless. "Survivor" wasn't a badge of honor; it was a noose, a weight, a scarlet _fucking_ letter. Through an accident, through nothing more significant than chance, Thena managed to avoid getting killed twice in her life. Not so impressive when you realized all survivors really ever had to do was _not get killed._ Survival guaranteed no glory for the living; nothing ended _just_ because you'd lived through it, because after the carnage, after the wreckage, after the bodies have been tallied up, survivors are left with no choice but to learn how to live again, how to _be_ again.

Thena didn't _want_ to play that role anymore, didn't want to carry that weight, wear that letter. So far as she was concerned, Thena Shepard was no survivor. And survival could go fuck itself.

_Not quite the way to avoid Category Six, Shepard,_ came the bitter reminder from deep inside her skull. _Survivors survive. You survived, ergo you are a survivor. Like it or not. So act like one._

Calling her in, Doc Reyes took one look at Thena's stormy expression and invited her to take a seat in the same deep leather armchair she'd sat in for weeks on end—no long couches like they always showed in the vids, thank God. She tolerated Reyes' niceties, the genial exchange of greetings and small talk because none of it ever lasted long.

"Your latest round of screens indicate no real change in your frontal or temporal lobes," Reyes explained with very little preamble, pulling up a projection on her omni-tool. "I'm concerned the scans aren't showing us more improvement."

Thena's physical injuries had healed in good time, but her brain scans had shown irregular activity from the start, which had been enough to keep her from being released for active duty. Eighteen weeks now, and though her scans were fluctuating, they weren't fluctuating in the right direction—the temporal and frontal lobes were demonstrating unusual activity, _still, _goddammit—and Reyes wasn't going to sign off on anything until Thena's scans were clean.

"Sorry," she said, forcing her eyes open and dragging them up to look the doctor in the eye.

"No need to apologize," the doctor said briskly, closing the projection and dimming the tool. "But it may be time to reevaluate your treatment strategy."

Thena wasn't so sure about that; it seemed there were too many people she owed apologies, most if not all of them dead. Treatment strategies weren't going to change that. Four months since the clusterfuck on Akuze. _Four months._ Four months to get over it. Four months to pull her big-girl pants up and move the fuck on already. But no. No, she was stuck here, with bullshit nightmares and memories closing in on her, rising like ghosts all around. And she was supposed to_ talk about it_.

"I'm wondering, Thena," Reyes began, clasping her hands and leaning forward in her chair, resting her elbows on her knees and fixing Thena with a look of concern, of compassion so genuine it _hurt_. "I'm wondering if you've given any more thought to the exposure therapy program we talked about."

"I have."

The doctor's eyebrows lifted. "And?"

She shifted in her seat, crossing one leg over the other. "Answer's still no."

Reyes' program was a method of virtual reality therapy, designed to place someone dealing with some textbook trauma _back_ into the thick of the trauma for reasons likely having to do with gaining strength over a memory by facing that memory. It was Thena's humble and private opinion that anyone who thought facing down a thresher maw voluntarily was any sort of good idea might've been in need of therapy herself.

Reyes let the matter drop for the moment, but Thena knew it'd be surfacing again, like the virtual maw she was so determined to avoid.

"I'd like you to reconsider. The success rate with the VR exposure programs is impres—"

"No."

The doctor pressed her lips together, which was about as much frustration as she ever let show. "I realize I can't force you to acquiesce to the treatment, but I'm concerned you're doing yourself more damage than good. We can pinpoint problem areas with the screens, but therapy and relaxation techniques can only address part of the problem." She paused, dark eyes fixed on Thena. "Rejecting my recommendations won't get you back in the field any sooner."

"You said yourself the exposure therapy's not guaranteed," Thena argued, shaking her head. "Give me a guarantee and I'll _think_ about it. Until then, I'll do any other damn thing you want."

Reyes pursed her lips, then looked down at the datapad in her lap. The silence was just long enough that Thena had begun to wonder exactly _what_ she'd said to put such a _thoughtful_ expression on the doctor's face. "All right. According to your files, you've still seen no visitors since arriving on Arcturus," she said. "Why is that?"

_Theen. You do not have the hugest social calendar. Basic deduction skills, I have them._

A lump formed in her throat, but Thena shrugged one shoulder, gritting her teeth to shove back the memory. "I'm here for treatment, not shore leave."

"It's a long time to be off the grid," said Reyes lightly.

What could she say? She'd received messages from Philips and McTavish and even _Barker,_ all of them asking about her, wanting to help, each offering their own different brands of support_._ They'd all expressed interest in coming to see her, but Thena had deflected, given them excuse after excuse after excuse until slowly the messages stopped appearing in her inbox. So no, she hadn't had any visitors. Tyrrana wrote, and Thena even replied—but Tyrrana didn't know about Akuze. Or if she _did_, she didn't know Thena'd been deployed on Akuze. All of Tyrrana's messages were her standard fare, from what mod Jevia had hobbled together out of spare parts, to Zakera gossip, to what annoying thing the now-_Commander_ Vakarian had done recently (_As if his plates weren't already swollen enough,_ she'd written Thena). They were the closest thing she had to letters from home and they were _normal._ And normal was not anything she was willing to sacrifice right now.

"I'm not off the grid," she finally riposted. "Everyone in the Alliance knows were to find me."

"And your friends?" Reyes didn't ask about family; the woman had done her homework from the start.

"My friends have better things to do with their time than come coddle me over a few nightmares."

"_All_ of your friends?" she asked, placing peculiar emphasis on "all."

Thena leaned forward, almost mirroring the doctor's posture, but for the way her own hands were gripping her knees, thumbs settling in along the ridge of her kneecap. "I have a small circle of friends. Sorry if it means there isn't an entourage coming to check up on me when I go off the grid for a couple months."

All right, maybe more than a couple of months.

Doc Reyes shot her an unreadable look, leaving Thena with the feeling she was thinking along the same track. "Maintaining healthy personal relationships isn't…quite the same thing as expecting your friends cater to your every whim. The people in your life want to care about you. Let them." She looked down at the datapad again, falling silent for several long seconds before saying, "You mentioned the turian woman before. Tyrrana?"

"Yeah?"

"Tell me more about her."

Thena blinked. "She's a turian."

"Yes, you said as much. What else?"

_And she's the best friend I've got right now, and I don't think I could take her pity so I'm not telling her any of the shit that went down, and as long as she doesn't ask about what I'm doing, I can keep not-telling her anything._

Hell of a thing, realizing your best friend was the one you were keeping all the secrets from.

"She… runs the turian shelter on the Citadel," Thena explained, turning her gaze down to her hands as her fingers twisted around each other. She picked at a cuticle until it stung and blood crept up through the torn strip of skin. "Tough as nails and a hell of a teacher. Never took any of my crap." She smiled at the distant memory of a secondhand omni-tool and liquor sweeter than ripe pears, then added, "Generous. Kind. A good listener. She… she's—I don't know what it was she did back when she was with the Hierarchy, but she's always been able to kick me in the rear with perspective."

Reyes was tilting her head, eyeing Thena speculatively. "Do you… think she'd be willing to come to the station?"

Thena's mouth went suddenly, horribly dry. "No," she finally managed, with a weak shake of her head. "No. I don't think she would."

_I hope she wouldn't._

#

Arcturus Station glided into view as the tiny transport circled around before coming in to dock, which it did with a deep, metallic _clank._ Honestly, flight and landing protocols were so similar, even across species lines, it could have been any transport in the galaxy to any station in the galaxy, but for the fact that it _wasn't_ any station, and Tyrrana was currently the only non-human on the entire transport. She would likely be the only non-human on the whole station, which was knowledge enough to make every instinct Tyrrana possessed prickle under her plates until they itched with _Get the hell out._ And that was one hell of a hard instinct to fight.

On the other hand, it wasn't every day a turian got an invitation onto Arcturus_._ Granted, the invitation had come in the form of a too-formal, stiffly-worded message that sounded nothing at all like the young woman she'd come to know over the last seven years. She'd accepted, but not without inquiries of her own, mostly along the lines of _what strings did you pull to make this happen, kiddo?_ But Thena, instead of laughing off Tyrrana's concerns and questions as paranoid—which, all right, fair point—clammed up, turning entirely too evasive for Tyrrana's peace of mind. The more Thena evaded and deflected, the more Tyrrana's attendant paranoia reared its ugly and entirely-too-inquisitive-for-its-own-good head.

One hacking program later—her best work, really; the sort of thing Blackwatch would've salivated over and Narius would've killed her over—she'd learned the details, though Tyrrana found herself wishing she _hadn't. _The Alliance medical files spread open under her hands like overripe lavaya fruit, laying bare every last one of Thena Shepard's medical scans and treatment reports, surgeries and psychiatric notes.

She and Narius had heard about Akuze months before, and how things had gone so astonishingly_ sideways_—it'd been on all the news kiosks all around the Citadel. A whole unit wiped out, save one, whose name was being withheld. The fact there'd been a survivor at all was a surprise; thresher maws didn't have a reputation for leaving _anything_ behind, much less survivors. As they took in the news, as various bulletins and reports shot across the kiosk screens, neither sibling voiced their concerns to the other. Neither had to. Tyrrana knew exactly how long it had been since she'd heard from her charge—long enough to wonder.

It'd been a real party, the two of them trying to act as though they weren't paying attention to every last news brief, waiting for word and knowing if the worst _had_ happened, they'd find out when the Alliance released the names of the deceased.

Tyrrana, finding herself at a loss—a situation to which she was wholly unaccustomed—had sent light, trivial messages to Thena, never sure they'd ever be seen, let alone answered. She talked about everything _but_ thresher-maw-destroyed colonies, hoping she'd get a reply, but always prepared for the possibility she wouldn't. Ever.

Then the night came when Tyrrana's omni-tool chimed with an incoming message and upon seeing Thena's name in her inbox, Tyrrana let out the breath she'd been holding since that first Alliance news brief.

But then days turned into weeks turned into months, and gradually Tyrrana began to notice how… _frequently_ Thena wrote. Her replies to Tyrrana's messages, which had usually been spaced out a few days when she was on deployment, often came within twenty-four hours. She hadn't even been as faithful a correspondent when she'd been a cadet. But still the messages came, talking about the sorts of nonspecific things soldiers talk about when bitching about cold food and hard beds got old, so Tyrrana had tried to ignore that first little spark of uneasiness, though it hadn't ever really gone away.

And now she knew why.

She unfolded herself from the too small seat—her spurs were _aching_—grabbed her duffel from the overhead storage and sauntered off the transport, doing what was, in her opinion, a fantastic job of ignoring just how many humans were gaping at her just then.

Citadel aside, most space stations—particularly those used by the military—were pretty similar. Oh, there were differences here and there—wider or taller passageways, different signs on the walls—but by and large, military minds tended not differ overmuch when it came to architecture and design. As such, a strange wash of nostalgia and annoyance washed over Tyrrana as she stepped through the gate, moving from transport to station. It even _smelled_ right, scrubbed, recirculated air mingling with the faintest hint of gun oil and the faint electronic scent of most things tech. If not for all the humans staring at her, she probably would've felt right at home.

She scanned the area as the other passengers dispersed. Some were met by colleagues and squaddies, while others wasted no time heading off to parts unknown. Tyrrana took a few steps, pushing down the faint stab of something that was _most assuredly not worry_ when she didn't catch sight of Thena immediately.

Slinging her duffel onto her shoulder, Tyrrana pulled up her omni-tool, preparatory to messaging the kid and telling her to get her ass down to the docking bay, when her eye caught a figure about seven, maybe eight meters away, watching her.

Tyrrana lowered her arm, omni-tool forgotten.

The night they'd met wasn't one easily put out of mind, not for her anyway—not as if she had dozens of homeless human kids coming into her place looking for a bed. Hell, most human kids were scared witless of turians in general, and very few of her kind were willing to disabuse anyone—kids included—of that notion. She wasn't an expert on reading human expressions, but there'd been something in the kid's eyes, in the hunch of her shoulders, _something_ that spoke to Tyrrana, that conveyed so fluently the type of hell she'd been through so far.

If Thena's pain at sixteen had been evident, what she was going through now was positively eloquent. The woman she'd been her last visit to the Citadel, at the Alliance commissioning ceremony, the night they'd sat on the shelter's roof discussing her future like a pair of adults rather than a struggling, frustrated child and her mentor—that woman was gone, and in her place was someone who wore her face, wore her skin like an ill-fitting suit.

Thena's hair, that ever-present curtain of blue-black, was _not_, as Tyrrana had originally thought, pulled back and away from her face. Her hair was gone. Just… _gone,_ cut so short that tiny pieces stuck and curled upward, leaving Thena's face looking harder and more angular and…too unlike her. She looked _wrong_, and the longer Tyrrana stared, the more tiny details stuck out: her face was too thin, her eyes too hollow, her posture too hunched and tight and _angry._

_She doesn't want me here,_ came the sharp realization. Her stomach gave a sudden lurch as she took several steps, closing some of the distance between them. As she did, Thena's arms tightened across her body, clutching herself in something far too protective and wary to be a hug.

"Nice place you've got here," Tyrrana said, deciding to ignore every last signal Thena was broadcasting her way. "Figure it's only fair, right? You're always the one darkening _my_ doorstep, after all."

If any of the tension eased away from Thena's face, was an infinitesimal amount, leaving more hollows and shadows than it erased. "I didn't think you'd come."

_I hoped you wouldn't come,_ was what Tyrrana heard in Thena's tone, saw in her gaze. That prickling under her plates she'd felt first setting eyes on Arcturus Station was _nothing_ to this. Something was definitely not-right in Thena Shepard's corner of the galaxy, and she didn't want to tell Tyrrana about it.

Foreknowledge was one hell of a handy thing.

Their walk to Thena's quarters was a long one, and it did not go unobserved by Tyrrana that they were moving away from the standard-issue military and administrative areas with their own unique scents and sounds, and into a quieter level of the station, with hushed conversations and a faintly antiseptic smell. Neither of them commented on it as Thena led Tyrrana down one hallway and then another, stopping at a door and handing her a key code.

"They put you next door to me," she said, jerking her chin at the next room over.

"Nowhere better," Tyrrana said cheerfully, punching in the key code. The doors opened with a rush of air and she stepped inside, turning on the lights. "How 'bout you keep me company while I unpack?"

Thena's hesitation spoke volumes. Finally, she swallowed hard and nodded, following Tyrrana in and letting the door slide shut behind her.

She dropped her duffel at the same time she dropped all pretense. Pulling her omni-tool out, Tyrrana ran her favorite anti-surveillance program—Jevia had written it and then augmented it—and once she was satisfied, she turned and faced Thena.

"Talk to me, kid."

"I don't—"

"That was the chilliest welcome this side of Noveria, okay? I'm here because you asked me, but I'm pretty sure you don't actually _want_ me here. Don't think I haven't noticed that. So spill it."

"It's… complicated," she admitted, the words sounding as if they were being torn from her.

Cocking a browplate but still playing her cards close to her chest, Tyrrana asked, "Complicated like you being in a hospital wing?"

She considered it no victory when Thena flinched.

"Yeah," she said finally, her voice low and hoarse. "Complicated like that."

Knowing the situation because she'd read Thena's medical file from start to finish was one thing. It was the difference between theoretical and practical knowledge. Faced with words on a screen was bad enough; being forced to look Thena in the eye—_knowing_ what she'd done, good intentions or not, was an enormous breach of trust—was far worse. The prickling under Tyrrana's plates got worse as more suspicions and deductions all slithered out of the ether, each one more unpleasant than the last.

"All right then. Let's have it," she said. "Tell me."

First Thena sat. And then she told.

Tyrrana didn't interrupt, didn't say a single word while Thena spoke. She listened, scarcely breathing. Even when Thena finally fell silent, when the story was over, Tyrrana didn't speak. All the foreknowledge in the world couldn't have prepared her for that.

"So what do we do about it?" Tyrrana managed, once her voice came back.

Thena only stared, looking up as Tyrrana stood. "We?"

"We."

"This isn't your—"

"Don't you dare tell me this isn't my problem, Shepard," barked Tyrrana, striding from one end of the room to the other. "I've known you for too long and I know you've worked too hard to get where you are. You clawed your way up from the ducts, kiddo. So, what, you're just going to _give up_? Take a discharge? No. I don't believe that. Not for one second." She stood over Thena, staring down into her face, searching through shadows and ghosts and should-have-dones until the young woman's jaw tightened minutely. A glimmer of defiance, but only a glimmer. A small victory, but she'd take it.

"You weren't _there,_" she ground out through gritted teeth. "You don't—"

"Oh, maybe I wasn't on Akuze," Tyrrana answered with a wave of her hand, "but don't think for a second I've never been where you are right now. A mission goes sideways through no fault of your own? That's one of the hardest things to accept—trust me, I know. Just like I _know_ you don't want me here." She dropped into a crouch and stared hard into Thena's eyes, never so relieved in all her life that humans couldn't interpret subvocals. "Just like I know you are completely shit out of luck on that score, because I am staying for as long as you need me, kid. So get used to it."

It wasn't what Thena had expected to hear—that much was evident; the outer edges of her anger had melted away into shock. Tyrrana could hardly blame her; that wasn't what Tyrrana had intended to _say_, and yet… she meant every word of it.

"You want to get cleared for active duty?" Tyrrana asked her. After a long moment, Thena gave a tiny, determined nod. Determination was a hell of a good place to start. She could work with determination. She could work with anger, too—it just had to be channeled properly. "It's not going to be easy. You're probably going to hate me when it's over."

"Doubt that," Thena said.

"I'll remind you you said that," she replied with a chuckle. The mirth, though, was short lived; as she reached up one hand and ran it over Thena's head, the gesture striking her as so incongruously maternal, and yet appropriate all the same.

"I cut it," Thena supplied, touching one short curl self-consciously.

"I could tell."

"I just—"

"You got knocked on your ass. Hard. And that's a hell of a thing, to find yourself knocked down like that. Believe me, I know," she told Thena, letting her hand drop. "And this isn't the last time it's gonna happen—probably the last thing you want to hear right now, but know this: every time you pick yourself up, you make yourself stronger."

"That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger?"

Tyrrana nodded. "Something like that. And the stronger you make yourself, the harder you are to knock down."


End file.
